A dynamic duo of a handheld barcode scanner and a feisty elderly woman attempted to intervene in the robbery of a convenience store in Malden, Massachusetts.

A security camera recording captured the entire event.

We agree with the police that attacking a robber is “not something we would recommend for anybody to do”. If you do choose to do so, swing the base of the barcode scanner stand (that’s where all the weight is)

Nancy Fichtner, an employee of the Department of Veterans Affairs has won the first ever President’s SAVE Award. The SAVE Award is given to the Federal employeee with the best idea to save taxpayer dollars and make the government perform more effectively and efficiently.

Fichtner’s idea is to add a barcode to medicines that would allow a hospital patient to take the unused portions of medications such as ointments, inhalers, eye drops, and other bulk items home with them after discharge. These medicines are now being thrown away in many parts of the VA system because they lack adequate labeling for in-hospital and at-home use.

Fichtner’s idea was selected amongst over 30,000 entries. On Monday, December 21, Nancy will present her idea to President Obama at the White House.

 

Imagine a checkout line at your local grocery store, but with students lining up to be scanned instead of your groceries. That is the growing scene at college fairs across the country since the National Association for College Admission Counseling introduced barcode scanners at several of its National College Fairs.

The technology allows applicants to fill out their contact information online and can then print out their own personal barcode to take to the fair. In turn, colleges attending the fair can rent scanners, allowing students to swipe their barcodes at the colleges they are interested in. Universities can download an applicant’s information on the computer within 24 hours after the fair.

A lawsuit filed in the state Supreme Court is aimed at blocking the use of bar codes on election ballots in Washington because they could be used to identify a voter’s choices.

The lawsuit alleges that more than 1 million Washington voters could have their secret vote preferences violated in counties that use certain ballot-tracking equipment. Elections officials say the claim is not true.

“In addition to violating statutory ballot secrecy standards, the use of ballot IDs threatens actual compromise of ballot secrecy,” declares the suit prepared by Knoll Lowney, an attorney who has filed suits in the past against targets such as Tim Eyman’s initiatives, U.S. Senate candidate Mike McGavick and the Building Industry Association of Washington.

Lowney estimated that one-third of eligible voters are affected in Washington, but Reed’s elections chief denied that there is any risk.

A team of Irish scientists has devised a method of identifying individual chickens by putting miniature barcodes on their beaks and legs, and older hens by their combs. Working at the UCD Bioresources Research Centre, the researchers achieved a 97 percent accuracy rate in experiments on identifying individual bird parts with barcodes.

Led by Professor Shane Ward, the group set out to find novel, accurate, tamper-proof and cost-effective systems to track and trace animals using among other things, biometric identification. While laying hens do not have fingerprints, they discovered they have individual comb profiles. The researchers developed specific biometric algorithms to isolate the comb profiles using mathematical modeling techniques.

Look closely at recent supermarket coupons, and you may see some new markings on them near the traditional bar code: sets of neat black bars stacked in two rows. These new symbols are called GS1 DataBars and can store more data than traditional bar codes, promising new ways for stores to monitor inventory and for customers to save money.

One use of the symbols will be in sophisticated coupon offers that combine deals on multiple products. A single coupon, for example, could offer discounts on three separate items like eggs, bacon and biscuits, all in one transaction. Another use of the new symbols is already helping to streamline operations for a common speed bump in the checkout process: loose produce, and it also prevents another checkout problem: cashiers mistaking organic vegetables for less expensive, conventionally grown ones, and ringing them up for the lower price.

In the future, coupon bar codes will probably be read less from strips of paper, and more from cellphones that people hold out for scanning by the cashier.

Continue reading: The Bar Code Is Taking a Leap Forward

Most manufacturers already use barcodes or RFID chips to track their products. With the help of cheap cellphone and Internet access it is becoming possible to collate data from remote locations around the world and make it available to consumers in grocery stores.

In many cases, are open to the notion that transparency about the source of their food is good for business. The idea is to develop a system to prove to customers that crops are not grown on land recently occupied by tropical rainforest.

In remote regions where farmers don’t have access to computers, they can use cellphones to record the time and place the crop was harvested into an online database. Tracking systems like this should also make it easy to calculate the distance that goods travel to reach stores, allowing consumers to estimate the greenhouse gas emissions racked up by the transport of their food. Heiner Lehr of FoodReg says, “The technology is there. If a big retailer puts itself behind this, it could happen very fast.”

Original article: Barcodes could reveal your food’s credentials

New barcodes lead to new possibilities. GS1 DataBars store more data than a standard barcode and give it potential for much greater functionality.

Look closely at recent supermarket coupons, and you may see some new markings on them near the traditional bar code: sets of neat black bars stacked in two rows. The new symbols, called GS1 DataBars, can store more data than traditional bar codes, promising new ways for stores to monitor inventory and for customers to save money.

One use of the symbols will be in sophisticated coupon offers that combine deals on multiple products, said Jackie Broberg, who leads coupon control management at General Mills in Minneapolis. Another use is already helping to streamline operations for a common speed bump in the checkout process: loose produce. During the past three years, for example, the Loblaw Companies, the big Canadian supermarket chain, has gradually switched to scannable, miniaturized DataBar labels pasted onto some fruits and vegetables. The system also prevents cashiers from mistaking organic vegetables for less expensive, conventionally grown ones.

Continue reading: The Bar Code Is Taking a Leap Forward

 

From its beginnings as a service to help supermarkets speed up the checkout process, the Universal Product Code, known as the bar code, celebrated its 35th birthday Wednesday June 3rd as a technology that has expanded to applications far and wide.

One of the world’s best-known symbols, the UPC comprises a row of 59 machine-readable black-and-white bars and 12 human-readable digits. Both the bars and the digits convey the same information: the identity of a specific product and its manufacturer.

First developed to help grocery clerks quickly total customers’ bills, the first live use of a bar code took place in a Marsh Supermarkets store in Troy, Ohio, on June 26, 1974, when a cashier scanned a pack of Wrigley’s gum, according to information from GS1 US, a Lawrenceville, N.J., nonprofit that says it is the developer and administrator of the UPC for more than 200,000 businesses in the U.S.

 

Microscan has launched a new information-rich version of its popular Web site, www.microscan.com. The new global Web site reflects the company’s recent growth, as Microscan’s technology, patents, products and solutions offerings have tripled in the last 12 months.

The new site is simpler to navigate, provides more detailed information, enhanced user features, and reflects the company’s global growth in technology, products, and solutions.

Microscan’s range of technology is showcased in a new section providing educational information on machine vision, machine vision lighting, barcodes, and verification. An expanded section on solutions now includes industry and engineered solution content. New user experience features have been added, such as a video library for viewing product demonstrations and a free trial of Visionscape® machine vision software.

“Microscan has grown beyond barcode,” states Microscan president Jeff Timms. “We have grown beyond a product manufacturer and into a company focused on providing Track, Trace, and Control solutions to key markets, segments and customers. This is a completely different company now than it was just one year ago and our new Web site reflects this growth.”