Tuesday, December 20, 2005

An error only a barcode nerd would catch

I saw this ad in the concourse of Cleveland airport coming home from Grandma's Thanksgiving. I can only assume that literally thousands of eyeballs gaze upon this ad.

But my eye focused on the barcode. Do I remember who the advertiser was? No. (Well that's money ill-spent.)



What do I see? The barcode. It's a UPC barcode. Definitely not the kind of barcode you'd expect to see used for ID and tracking purposes. At least I don't expect to see a UPC version A w/o human-readable characters used a such.

But that's just me.

Wednesday, December 07, 2005

Doesn't quite fit the co-op lifestyle

Somewhat clever idea with a high geek factor. And not necessarily in a good way either.

The staff at my local food co-op knows I write barcode software. I'm not sure how they'd react if I copped to using one of these things. Actually I do: they'd laugh me out of the store.

RFID & Barcodes

Let's get one thing straight: RFID will not, I repeat not replace barcodes.

Barcodes are not extinct. There's years of life left in 'em. RFID is a solution (sic) looking for a problem.

Or as the wise sage Ray Delnicki sez "Barcodes are the human-readables for RFID."