(Science) How Barcode Scanner Technology Has Made A Difference

October 7th, 2008 admin Posted in technology |

By Rick Hendershot

The use of barcode technology has revolutionized the process of inventory control. Barcodes are used virtually everywhere to keep track of product information and inventory levels. These days barcodes are even used to add products to gift registries. No one gives a second thought any more to the use of barcode technology.

They’re so common that barcodes and scanners rarely get a second thought as to how or why they work. It’s rare that one thinks about how dragging items across the checkout scanner suddenly makes it register a price and a name which are identical to the label. We simply take barcode scanners and barcode readers for granted.

So how exactly does a barcode scanner operate? To grasp how barcode technology works one first has to understand how bar codes themselves are generated and how they work to identify products. The barcode contains information about the item that has been “barcoded”. This information is coded using a special type of barcode language. The barcode scanner then translates the language of bar codes into information that humans can understand and decipher.

The barcode language is actually quite simple. All barcodes contain specific symbols which equal a series of bars. These bars are made up of short and long bars, along with varying spacing between the bars. Every part of the series denotes a number of characters, depending upon the date originally entered into the barcode software.

In other words, barcode software is the beginning point for all barcodes and barcode scanning systems. It is what makes the system work. Programmer are able to use barcode software to inventory their products by inputting the product’s name and assigning it a barcode generated by the computer. This is all accomplished by using a sophisticated database system, where data from each product is stored. This makes keeping track of the inventory easy and it also helps to speed up the updating of pricing. New information about products is entered into the database. Then whenever the barcode scanner reads a barcode that identifies a specific product it is connected directly to the database where it finds the most current information about the product.

The barcode scanner itself uses technology that “reads” the barcode label. It does this with photo sensors located within the barcode scanner that have the ability to read and decipher each barcode as it is scanned. All of these photo sensors work together to recognize spacing, length, and alignment of different bars, then match them with corresponding product information found in the database. This ingenious technology is really quite simple when you understand how it works.

Barcode scanning technology has made a huge difference in offices, factories, warehouses, hospitals, restaurants, government facilities - anywhere where it is necessary to keep track of inventoried items. Of course the most visible place where this technology has made a big difference is at the checkout line of your friendly neighborhood variety or grocery store. The next time you are there in one of those lines, think about how barcode technology gets you out of the door just that much faster.

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The Complete Makeover of the Internet
By Fred Jones

Compared to ten years ago the internet has gone through a completely overhaul of the use and functionality from when it was first managed. Since its first introduction the internet was first used as a way for the military and universities to share data with each other respectively.

When I first got the internet at my house it was through a phone line and a 56k modem. My very first internet service provider or ISP was American Online or more commonly known as AOL. AOL was the very first internet provider I used at home and it was also very convenient because everyone that I knew also had AOL as their ISP.

However because the internet was provided through a modem by a 56k modem it was very annoying to have your connection dropped every time someone else called you or someone in your household tried using the phone. Because of this my parents got a second phone line to prevent this but even so there were the spam phone calls we would get from telemarketers.

Back in the day when AOL was extremely popular I remember a lot of things that kids all over the world would participate in. The most popular online activity that I remember kids would participate in were the online chat rooms where people would play text games and all sorts of other activities.

Other games that were extremely popular were War Craft II, Star Craft and Diablo II. I remember I would spend hours on ends with friends and random people playing these 3 games whenever I had free time. But since the major way to get internet back then was through a phone line it was a complete breakthrough for me when we got our first broadband ISP.

Compared to the very unreliable service you would normally get through a normal phone line, broadband was completely different. It would rarely disconnect you from the internet and also the amount of data was a lot faster compared to the predecessor. With the internet becoming more and more stable and reliable a new world of opportunities opens up for the everyday person. They can now create their own websites to whatever topic or theme they want. They can create communities of people with like minds to share their ideas and converse with each other.

People can either pay for web service or get free web service through one of the popular free mediums such as personal sites such as MySpace and FaceBook, to community sites such as a Forum, Bulletin Board System or Wiki page. With such methods available for anyone with access to the internet people can connect with each other no matter where they are around the world.

However this might come to an end in the US with the introduction of mediated online services that major ISPs are trying to pass through as a law within congress. The major ISPs will control the internet and will charge users fees to what they are able to see as well as the basic service of even accessing the internet.

Fred Jones

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