Trade In and Trade Up

Take advantage of the Intermec Trade In Program by trading in a competitive or Intermec pre-owned thermal printer and purchasing a qualifying new Intermec printer to earn up to $525 back.

Now’s the time to upgrade your legacy industrial, mobile or desktop printers to one of the industry’s most complete lineup of rugged, reliable and versatile printing solutions.

The Intermec Trade In Program offers compelling rebates on Intermec’s most popular printing products and is available until 12/31/2013.

Visit Intermec.tradeups.com for complete details

The co-inventor of one of the most indispensable technologies of the 20th century that labels every retail product, the barcode, has died. The death of Norman Joseph Woodland, who was 91, was confirmed by his daughter, Susan Woodland. She said he died on Sunday in Edgewater, New Jersey, from the effects of Alzheimer’s disease and complications of advanced age.

Mr Woodland and Robert Silver were students at Philadelphia’s Drexel University when Mr Silver overheard a grocery store executive asking an administrator to support research on how product information could be captured at checkouts. The pair earned a patent in 1951 with Mr Woodland’s idea to create a shape of concentric circles. The technology did not catch on until the 1970s, when Mr Woodland’s employer IBM promoted a rectangular barcode that was adopted as the standard.

The barcode may have come from a humble beginning but has become the de facto means of tracking any kind of product or process today. Woodland’s innovation and contribution to the technology was crucial to improving businesses around the globe.

Intermec, a leading provider of mobile data collection hardware and information management solutions, announced a definitive agreement under which Honeywell International Inc, a diversified technology and manufacturing leader, will acquire Intermec for $10.00 per share in an all-cash transaction valued at approximately $600 million, net of cash and debt acquired. Businesses around the world increasingly require more robust asset tracking and data capture applications and the combined entity will be a technology and information management solutions leader in the Auto Identification and Data Capture (AIDC) industry.

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Cortec Group, a New York based private equity firm which invests in middle-market distribution, healthcare, consumer, and specialty products and service businesses, announced that on November 2, 2012 its affiliate, Cortec Group Fund V, L.P. , acquired Barcodes Inc in partnership with management. Terms of the transaction were not disclosed.

Headquartered in Chicago, Illinois, Barcodes is a leading distributor of automatic identification capture (“AIDC”) products, selling primarily to small and medium-sized businesses and select Fortune 500 customers. The Company’s AIDC products, which include barcode scanners, mobile computers, label printers, point-of-sale systems, identification cards, RFID equipment, and other related consumable products, allow customers to improve productivity and profitability in their businesses. Barcodes maintains strong relationships with many of the premier manufacturers in the industry, and effectively couples a strong web-site presence with technical sales capabilities to serve its customers.

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Now a common place tool used at almost all levels of business, the barcode is now celebrating 60 years of use!

The now-ubiquitous patch was first patented in 1952. The first design, invented by Norman Joseph Woodland and Bernard Silver, resembled a circular bullseye. Originally created to help speed up the check out lines at a grocery store, they are now use to track almost anything.  Asset management, inventory, POS, and ID issuance are just some examples of processes that would be much more difficult with out the help of barcodes.

Today, 60 years after the barcode was first patented, there are more than 5 million individual barcodes in use around the world.  Oddly enough, one of the first retail products to use a barcode was Wrigley’g gum!  Through the years, many different types of codes have been developed, but none as popular and well-known as the UPC barcode, used on retail items, and the quickly advancing QR code you can scan with your smartphone.

Wherever you look you can find the barcode hard at work.  With advancements in scanner technology and more flexible barcode development, we’ll hopefully see another 60 years of barcodes!

New research into the mobile consumer buying habits of men and women reveals that, not only do men shop more via mobile devices than women, but they also make more use of barcode scanners.

As mobile devices become the most common way people get online, uSamp decided to conduct a survey of the mobile shopping habits of 1,100 men and woman, ages 18 – 75. The results may surprise many people in that it found men to be the bigger online mobile shoppers.

What was everyone buying?

• 27% of males purchase consumer electronics on mobile vs. 8% of females
• 23% of males purchase movie and event tickets on mobile vs. 11% of females
• 30% of males purchase digital content on mobile vs. 20% of females
• 13% of males purchase food and drinks on mobile vs. 8% of females
• 8% of males purchase office supplies on mobile vs. 4% of females

Another interesting result from the study was that 91% of the time men were scanning barcodes with their mobile purchase versus the 85% of women. The survey found that men and woman who scan barcodes with mobile devices are shopping at these types of stores:

• Electronic store: 27% male vs. 12% female
• Convenience store: 7% male vs. 3% female
• Health & Beauty Store: 6% female vs. 2% male

More info on the study can be found here.

Janam Technologies announced that its XM66 rugged handheld devices are being used to scan spectator tickets during this summer’s preeminent global sporting event.

“Moving spectators quickly and easily into multiple ticketed venues is crucial for success of the event,” said Harry B. Lerner, CEO of Janam. “We are extremely proud that Janam was selected and couldn’t ask for a better venue to showcase the capabilities of our products.”

“This is yet another case where mission critical operational needs are best addressed with purpose-built tools, as opposed to fragile consumer devices in attachable sleds with half a day of battery life,” Lerner added. “This solution required rapid-fire barcode scanning and secure, reliable wireless data communication in a lightweight yet rugged device.”

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Finding the right scanner that will meet the demands of your business and not break your budget is always a challenge.

To help make the decision easier, the Unitech MS-180 is our current Hot Deal though the end of the month.

Unitech’s MS-series scanners are some of the most affordable and reliable on the market today.  These scanners can benefit all aspecst of your business to save you time, money, and make your business more efficient. This video goes over just a few business scenarios, but the MS series can tackle almost anything you need it to do.

Motorola Solutions and Psion announced that they have agreed on the terms of a recommended offer by Motorola Solutions for a buyout of all Psion stock shares.

Psion has been a pioneer in ruggedized mobile computing products and their application in industrial segments around the world. With headquarters in London and a major operational presence near Toronto, Canada, Psion has been a leader in mobile computing solutions since 1980. Psion has approximately 830 employees, customers in more than 50 countries.

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In this modern world of technology the mobile phone is being used more and more for everyday things, and one of those things is the ability to read handy barcodes by way of a barcode scanner app on your mobile device that can read the code on products and deliver info about that product, I’m pretty sure if you own a mobile device you know how barcode scanners work.

So with this in mind, we thought we’d bring to our Android readers out there, our pick of the top 5 barcode scanner for the Android platform for your consideration, so let’s kick off that top 5 with…

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