- Barcodes are printed in ink and are bars of different widths and spaces used to identify products in stores. They look like black lines separated by spaces with numbers beneath them, but they are much more complex than that. Barcodes have been known to reduce errors that humans make when labeling products.
- In 1969, Computer Identics developed a barcode system to keep track of axials for General Motor vehicles that were in inventory. This was one of the first industrial applications of barcodes. In 1981, the United States Department of Defense marked all of its products with barcodes that were being sold to the United States military. It is still used today. In 1982, the United States Postal Service began using barcodes to sort mail using ZIP codes.
- Barcodes are simply information on a product disguised in code. The code is read by a barcode scanner that sends the information to a system, where it is stored and processed. Barcodes can be read by shining a light across the stripes or by scanning the stripes like they do in grocery stores. A video image is captured and measures the lengths of the white spaces and black bars. They are then analyzed and data are decoded, stored and processed.
- Barcodes are made up of 12 digits. The first two digits of a barcode show which country created the barcode. The following four digits determine who manufactured the product. Depending on the country, some barcodes only have three digit codes, so some manufacturers may only have three codes. The last six digits are the product code, which is assigned by the manufacturer. All products have their own individual code.
- Artists have actually done work based on the design of the barcode. American painter and sculptor Bernard Solco based his art on barcodes and created a collection of paintings and prints called "Symbology." Scott Blake bases his work around barcode. There are also many barcode-inspired paintings, drawings and posters all over the Internet.
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