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Bar Coding The World Away

Posted by Hemos on from the it's-the-mark-of-the-beast dept.

778790 writes "The Bar Code, long used for inventory classification and sometimes feared as a tool of social engineering, has been regulated in the name of globalization, and the globe has defeated the United States. Bar Codes in America will now have more digits, to match the global bar code standard: the European Article Numbering Code."

6 of 470 comments (clear)

  1. Get me a rewrite... by LostCluster · · Score: 4, Insightful

    12-digit bar codes aren't quite going to be retired, but US and Canadian retailers will be expected to be able to tolerate 13-digit codes as of January 2005. This sounds a lot like the Y2K situation... anybody whose database and/or software assumed it was a 12-digit field is now going to have to account for an extra digit and that's going to mean patches and code rewrites all around.

    It's good news for the geeks... more work for us to do.

  2. Re:Why not be smarter? by mopslik · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Why not take the time to implement a flexible sytem which may allow to encore an arbitrary number of characters?

    I imagine it has to do with simplifying the amount of work done by barcode readers. Similar to IPv6. Bigger, longer... but still fixed-length.

    That last bit makes me feel dirty.

  3. When a domain runs out of numbers... by LostCluster · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Also on our radar screens should be the fact that the US PSTN numbering scheme keeps getting more lines and is coming closer to the point that the (xxx)-yyy-zzzz numbering format is about to hit the wall. The rule that declared the center digit of an area code had to be 0 or 1 fell years ago. If an extra digit ever gets added anywhere, a lot of PBX systems are going to not like the new numbers.

    IPv4 is also in trouble in this area, and IPv6 is waiting in the wings to take over. However, NAT seems to be good enough in stretching out single IP addresses to multiple computers so I don't know if we'll ever be forced to convert over.

    1. Re:When a domain runs out of numbers... by bigpat · · Score: 4, Insightful

      "IPv4 is also in trouble in this area, and IPv6 is waiting in the wings to take over. However, NAT seems to be good enough in stretching out single IP addresses to multiple computers so I don't know if we'll ever be forced to convert over."

      Although I agree essentially with what you say, I think far too many people don't realize that "good enough" will be at the cost of future economic and internet growth. There are many potentially very profitable communications, collaborative and gaming applications that are currently being restrained by IP address scarcity.

      Globally addressable numeric addresses enable end to end communication. What we lose when using NAT is simplicity. Simplicity is what would enable more communications applications to become practicle. As it is now, when using NAT, either the application software or user needs to do extra work either setting up a static route or discovering a route through a NAT. It should be clear that this unnecessary complexity imposed by the artificial scarcity of IP addresses limits the broader practicality of direct (most efficient) end-to-end video, voice and data communications over IP.

      Sure, there are some companies that profit from the scarcity of IPv4 addresses, but this is akin to the rise in gas prices, which raises oil company profits, but at the expense of a far greater number of people and companies that would have otherwise benefited from the increase of commerce that results when energy and transportation costs go down.

      Comunication cost and ease of communication are fundamental economic drivers. When communication is easier and cheaper, the economy as a whole will be better. Replacing IPv4 with IPv6 means communication would be both easier and cheaper(as long as the rollout costs don't get out of hand).

  4. Inevitable by metamatic · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Other inevitable and overdue US switchovers:

    1. GSM mobile phones.
    2. Metric. (*)
    3. Standard international dialing. (00 + country)

    And one I won't be holding my breath for:

    4. A universal healthcare system.

    (*) Laugh all you like, global corporations are gonna use metric for everything, not stupid US-only units. Eventually this will trickle down to everyday life. It may take decades, but...

    --
    GCHQ Quantum Insert installed. If only our tongues were made of glass, how much more careful we would be when we speak
  5. Re:Woah... by the+eric+conspiracy · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Well, while decimal has it's advantages because it is aligned with base ten which is the most commonly used numbering system, units of measure using other bases like 12 and 60 have advantages as well in that they have more factors. 60, for example has factors of 2,3,4,5,6,10,15,20 and 30.

    For example, if an hour was 10 minutes, a quarter hour would be a fractional number of minutes. Not so in the base 60 system. Likewise, the foot, being 12 inches can be divided into more parts than a decimal foot could be.

    We might want to consider getting rid of decimal numbering and going to duodecimal, and then adopting a self consistent set of units in the new numbering system as a superiour alternative to that crazy scheme developed by the cheese eating, wine drinking, unbathed, Godless French.