The uses for a barcode scanner may be quite varied but being used as a weapon to defend your business against a robber has got to be the most daring of all.

This story starts at a Family Mart convenience store in Osaka, Japan at 4am when a young male in his 20’s comes in and asks the 41-year-old clerk for a pack of cigarettes. According to the clerk’s statement, while he was behind the register scanning the barcode on the cigarette pack, the customer pulled out a knife and a bag. The customer-turn-robber threatened the clerk with the knife and demanded the money from the register be emptied into the bag.

While Japan is a very safe country with almost no gun usage, larger cities do have instances of robbery and theft most commonly with the use of a knife.

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Edeka, a grocery retailer from Germany, found a a very creative way to get into the holiday spirit with the use of their in-counter scanners at their checkout lanes. Scanners all have the means to produce audio feedback for positive scans which, in many models, can be customized to specific pitches or sounds. Edeka put these programmable tones to use to make all their checkout lanes into a ‘playable’ instrument. Each lane plays a specific pitch so with a little practice their reps could perform Jingle Bells by simply scanning products in the right sequence.

Thanksgiving is a time to reflect on all that we have with friends and family. All of us at BarcodesInc would like to wish everyone a happy and joy filled Thanksgiving.

Our offices will be closed on Thursday the 27th and we will be shipping orders again starting on Monday December 1st.

We’ve seen a lot of interesting applications for barcodes but this might be one of the most interesting uses. In the video below you can see how artist Dmitry Morozov took his  8″ x 3″ barcode tattoo and turned it into music.  He modded a scanner with two black-line sensors, a stepper motor, and a Nintendo Wii remote to ‘read’ his tattoo and convert it into sound. The length of each bar dictates the duration of the sound and if he moves his arm, the Wii’s accelerometer detects the shift and distorts the tone. Definitely one of the most experimental uses of barcodes in art we’ve come across.

Ever worked as a check-out clerk in a grocery store?

Disney’s Checkout Challenge for Windows mobile devices captures the experience in a very convincing way. In this fast paced game you collect groceries and scan them in as quickly and accurately as possible for the highest score. Start training to improve your barcode scanning skills to become Checkout Chairman!

The app is currently available through the Windows Phone Store.

Today marks the 40 year anniversary of the first scan of a GS1 barcode in a retail environment – which all started with a pack of Wrigley Juicy Fruit gum at a Marsh Supermarket in Troy, Ohio on June 26, 1974!

No one could have ever expected how a simple technology like the barcode would go on to shape and mold the retail landscape. The familiar beep of the scanner is now heard around the world up to six billion times a day!

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Motivated by the typical beeps and tones of a POS barcode scanner, Košice-based artist Jakub Pišek decided to develop a way to make music with the same tools being employed in retail stores. With the help of some of his friends, Jakub started staging grocery store performance where they would scan anything in the store to create music. Each different barcode equates to a variety of sounds which can be composed in the moment by simply scanning. See the performances in action in the video below.

It’s hard to believe 2013 is already over! From all of us at Barcodes Inc we wish you a Happy New Year and look forward to supporting all of your Barcode, RFID, Point of Sale, and Mobility needs in in 2014!

From everyone at the BarcodesInc family, we wish you a Merry Christmas and a happy holiday season!

The Aomori prefectural government and local apple farmers plan to introduce a barcode system that will allow customers to check the history of each apple they buy. The move was prompted by growing calls for safer food, particularly in foreign countries.

Aomori Prefecture, a prime apple growing area in northern Japan, is seeking to expand the export of its apples to foreign markets. The new system will use the very common QR Code, a two-dimensional barcode. QR codes can be read by mobile phones, giving the customer information on where the apple came from and how it was cared for, such as how often pesticides were used, and even providing a photo and message from the farmer who grew the fruit. The data will be available in Japanese, Chinese and English.

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