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From fork-admin@xent.com  Tue Aug 13 10:31:07 2002

Rohit forwards from the NYT:
> Bigger Bar Code Inches Up on Retailers
> August 12, 2002
> By KATE MURPHY
I can't imagine why they're inching forward through
13- and then 14- digit extensions; seems they should
just leap ahead to something with real headroom, say
40-digit numbers (128 bits or more).
How hard can it be to widen the glyph area and
narrow the bars? The sensors have got to be tens
or even hundreds of times more accurate/robust
than when barcodes first took off.
One segment of the article along these lines:
> But moving to 13 digits may not be enough. The Universal
> Code Council and EAN International, which formed an
> alliance in 1996, strongly advise manufacturers and
> retailers to go a step further and prepare their systems to
> accommodate a 14-digit code. That is the length of a newly
> patented bar code that takes up less space. Its reduced
> size means that it can be affixed to small items like loose
> produce, and the extra digits let a retailer keep track of
> additional data like batch and lot numbers.
A newly *patented* bar code, that merely fits 14 digits
into less space? I sure hope there's more to this
"invention" than "more lines, and narrower".
They might as well go 2-D to fit in lots of extra bits,
which could also ease the transition to the capacity
radio-transponder tags may offer.
A bunch of info on different barcode standards, including
2-D variants, with examples is at:
http://www.makebarcode.com/specs/speclist.html
Something very much like a 2-D barcode is Xerox "Dataglyphs":
http://www.parc.com/solutions/dataglyphs/
- Gordon
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