The ubiquitous barcode hits 35

Daily Record, The (Baltimore), Jun 3, 2009 by Liz Farmer

By today's standards, waiting for 10 minutes in line at the grocery store is an eon. Hand calculating a fee for a parking garage is practically stone-aged, and printing out plane tickets at home is the way of the savvy traveler.

"[Barcodes] are everywhere, they're so ingrained in modern life," said Jon Mellor, a spokesman for GS1 US, the developer and administrator of the Universal Product Code barcode for more than 200,000 businesses in the United States.

June marks the 35th anniversary of the UPC barcode, and on Wednesday more than 800 attendees at GS1 US' annual U Connect Conference in Orlando, Fla., will celebrate the innovation with -- what else? -- a barcoded birthday cake.

No, the cake can't actually be scanned by a laser, said Mellor.

But these simple tags with 59 black and white bars and 12 accompanying digits revolutionized the retail industry in 1974 from one of inefficiency and uncertainty to one of reliable product tracking and instant results, he and others said.

But a new technology is on the way that, while it won't completely replace the barcode, will take some of its business.

RFIDs, or Radio-Frequency Identification tags, can contain more data than a barcode, such as package origination and routing data, and can be passed through a sensing device rather than scanned by a human being. They are found in everyday use in key fobs (keyless entry into buildings) and EZ Passes, or as anti-theft tags found in books or CDs.

The tags are more expensive to produce than barcodes, which experts say have virtually no cost. But with the recent price lowering of about 5 cents a tag, they say it's only a matter of time before RFIDs can replace barcodes in some areas of retail.

Jay Steinmetz, CEO of Baltimore-based Barcoding Inc., which develops products for automatic identification and data collection systems, noted RFID could start taking the place of barcodes in retail stores that sell similar items (such as video stores or clothing stores) but he did not see them yet for practical use in grocery stores, where barcodes got their start.

In other words, we're a long ways off from rolling our grocery carts through a sensor gate and arriving to our grand total on the other side.

"There's no doubt there will continue to be encroachment ... but RFID isn't a solution where it can apply to everything," he said.

The tags need "specific constraints" such as quality control for smaller items that may not be picked up by the sensor, he said. A pack of Wrigley's Gum (the first barcoded item scanned in 1974) may not be picked up if it's being crushed by a 25-pound bag of dog food, he said.

"A grocery store does not offer those constraints," he said.

But bulk retailers are a different story. Sam's Club is in the process of developing a checkout system using the tags by 2011 that could jump-start others in the industry, said Mark Roberti, editor of the RFID Journal.

"If they're successful, it will dramatically propel RFID adoption in retail; it'll be a game changer," he said. "If they do this before anyone else, it'll be a significant gain in market share for them and that could really propel it."

Other types of retail that offer large or expensive items could soon follow suit, he said.

But we're a long way off -- if ever -- from the end of barcodes. GS1 US is promoting the use of barcodes in realms outside of retail, such as in hospitals, as a way of more accurately tracking inventory. And the use of barcodes on tickets (sporting events, parking garages, etc.) is still the cheapest and most accurate way of storing and scanning data, experts said.

But while consumers shouldn't hold their breath and wait for the day of the 30-second checkout at their local grocer, they will see RFID tags on more products in the coming years as Mellor said he expects more manufacturers to use them. Whereas barcodes just contain manufacturer and product data, RFIDs contain a unique number to each product they are attached to, which can greatly assist in product recalls.

"They can quickly help in narrowing the source of the given outbreak that might happen," Mellor said.

As for the long-term future of barcodes in retail, anything's possible, he added. And while he wouldn't say if GS1 US would still be celebrating with a bar-coded cake another 75 years from now, he and others said the black and white lines were far from being eliminated.

"It's one of the best known symbols of the world," Mellor said. "It's just one of those things like the Mona Lisa or Mount Rushmore that's in everyone's collective consciousness."