The future barcode

Working in the transport industry I routinely come across forms of data encoding and retrieval for the purposes of tracking the movement of goods such as bar codes, RFID etc. The uses of these technologies outside of managing a supply chain have so far completely eluded me - and to be perfectly honest I was never interested in it.

That changed recently when I came across QR-Codes. QR Codes are a particular implementation of a two dimensional bar code. They are similar to a linear (1-dimensional) barcode, like the ones you find on products at your local supermaket, but have more data representation capability.

What I had failed to realize up to now is that these systems encode data, whatever this data may be. While your typical UPC or EAN barcode, which is used in retail, only has the ability to handle 12 decimal digits the more recent encoding systems go way beyond this. In the case of QR-Codes you’re able to encode over 4000 alpha numeric characters. This opens up a whole new market of possibilities.  

Stop and think for a second about it. What information can be conveyed to you in 4000 characters? What are the typical things for which you re-encode information as you move from one medium to another? What information is prone to “write once - read many” situations where the medium carrying the message does not have inherent technology to support the reading?

Top of mind for me would be books. Encoding such things as title, author, year of publication, publisher, anything within the ONIX standard would be really useful. Imagine you’re a shopkeeper and you have the ability to add titles to your catalogue simply by scanning the barcode! Another example would be encoding of IPTC and EXIF information on the back of printed photos. On the more sensitive side you could imagine encodig personal details such that instead of inserting your ID card or bank card into a reader you would just swipe them in front of a camera. The possiblities are limitless.