So ProductDose has the scoop about the new half-height and double density improvement to the barcode, the DataBar. (though I’m not sure why, maybe because all their other stories are about items with barcodes?)
While I think the ideas good, if you’re going to go through all the trouble of switching everything around, how about just biting the bullet and moving to QR Codes?
QR Codes are cool, could work with today’s mobile phones and contain more information that the databar, and you know, people are actually using them.
Here is a Haiku inside a QR code:
Here is a guy with a french accent talking about using QR codes as a URL encoding mechanism:
Here’s a video of several Japanese (I think) women extolling the virtues of the QR code (I think). If nothing else there are some neat pictures of burger wrappers, badges, and websites with QR codes, and as an added bonus the second woman talking has a voice deeper than a chain smoking lumberjack after a yodeling contest.
Industry needs barcode that scans fast, both at POS and warehouse reliably, omnidirectionaly etc… QR is good for consumer level apps but not industry-wide deployment. There is however a 2D add-on based on DataBar. Primary linear symbol is item number secondary 2D is anything e.g URI/URL
You bring up some good points, my thought is two fold:
1. The issues you raise (fast, omni-directional, etc) are issues of implementation. If you’re able to get the hardware necessary into a cellphone and work fast enough to satisfy energy drink fueled japanese teenagers, I’m not sure why it can’t work in the controlled confines of a warehouse.
2. Databar just seems like too little an advance to justify the infrastructure changeover. If you’re going to change, change big.