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First there was cash, then cheques, then card payments, but just this week payment methods have taken a step further – the mobile phone.
Making payments at a store using a mobile phone would have been cited as science fiction just a few years ago, but it has now been made a reality thanks to the common barcode.
Barcodes labels are used worldwide to keep track of stock. Businesses use barcode labels in warehouses, storage depots and also use them to monitor the transfer of goods into and out of both these facilities. By using barcodes as a way to identify goods, a business can track their goods whilst in transit or even whilst in stock at their own facilities.
With the Monaco Grand Prix this weekend making sure that every petrol head will be firmly glued to their TV screen, it’s sometimes interesting to see what goes on behind the image portrayed on our TV screens.
It might come as a bit of a shock that tyre manufacturer Pirelli brings 1800 tyres to every Grand Prix race, but it’s just staggering to learn that each tyre is allocated its own unique signature at the point of manufacture, so it can be tracked from production to removal from a race car. And the reason that all this can be achieved is simple – barcodes.
You’ll normally find barcodes printed onto an items packaging, but they don’t have their use restricted to this alone.
One of the other places you might see a barcode is in a warehouse. Barcodes can be used in warehouses for the following reasons.
Heavy duty floor barcode labels
Barcode labels which can be affixed to the floor can be scanned whenever required by manual operatives or automatically by automatic guided vehicles which have scanners attached. Because the labels have to stay in-situ for long periods of time floor barcode labels are normally made from steel or aluminium.
Wikipedia is set to leave its mark on a town in Monmouthshire over the next couple of months. The internet giant’s Monmouthpedia project is expected to be a hit with visitors to the historic town of Monmouth.
The project will see Wikipedia hope to offer comprehensive coverage of the entire town with over 500 new articles in 25 different languages available to visitors. The scheme will use special barcodes, QR codes, which will be mounted at various locations around the town. Users can then scan the barcodes with their mobile phones to access the up-to-date Wikipedia entries to find out more.
Security labels are becoming more common all the time across the business sphere. They are mainly used to prevent tampering or to provide evidence of tampering of a product or item.
The two main types of security labels currently available are:
Void labels
Void labels are designed so that if they are tampered with or if they are removed a ‘void’ message is left in the label’s place. The removed part of the label cannot then be reattached.
Tamper evident labels
One of the best ways to keep a check on all the items you own is to have a database which records each and every item and its location. This database can be a comprehensive list of all the assets you own and can even be a filtered depending on the type of search you are conducting. Asset location can be filtered or even asset type. For those assets which require electrical safety checks, a filter can also be applied so that those items which are out of date can be highlighted. In this way it’s easy to see what a difference an asset database can make.
If you enter a retail establishment, it is hard to miss the barcodes which are attached to every item in store. The barcodes provide a simple way for the shop owners to distinguish between different items and for them to implement a simple pricing structure which can be changed on a computer terminal in a matter of seconds, rather than relabeling every item with the correct price.
Temperature sensitive barcodes which can be scanned by a smart phone will be used by food proceeding companies to enable temperature quality to be monitored along every part of the supply chain.
The new technology named ThermoTrace TTI has been launched by DeltaTRAK at the United Fresh trade show earlier this month. The technology enables barcodes to be scanned by traditional barcode readers or by smartphones using either iPhone or Android software.
We are all familiar with barcodes, they have become a staple part of all our lives, we see them on just about every product we buy and may even see them at work on our equipment as a way to identify different items.
However, it seems like some people choose to view barcodes differently, and one of those people is artist Scott Blake. Scott’s latest works of art all feature thousands of barcodes, all positioned impeccably to represent the facial characteristics of a major celebrity.