Our namesake

Azalea OR 97410
Why we're called "Azalea Software, Inc."

Google Recognizes Barcodes 07oct09

Make note: Today, Oct 9 2009, Google celebrated barcodes by making a bar code the icon of the day.

Thank you!


- the gang at Azalea Software, Seattle

How evil is your food? Scan the barcode to find out.

FoodScanner is an iPhone app that makes me wish I still had an iPhone.

Oh yeah, that's right. AT&T's reception SUCKS at my house. Happiness is a G1. Yes it is.

But still, the app is cool in that it adds a social, political, & nutritional bent to your shopping.

DIY Barcode Software

That's right. For those of you who want to roll your own barcode decoding software, here's a project you can sink your teeth into.

Consolidating the Barcodes in Your Wallet

You don't have to know much about barcodes to appreciate this suggestion. Of course it leaves the poor cashier to scan every shortcut on your dance card until the register beeps. Still, it leaves your wallet thinner. File this one under "ultralight shopping".

UPCTools Mac on sale now!

UPCTools for the Mac is now on sale for only $149, a savings of 25%, now through Aug 10th.

ordering details...

NeoMedia Business Model in 3 Easy Steps

1. Patent an existing technology

2. Shake down existing players for license fees (or, you know, sue the pants off them)

3. Compete directly with your licensees.

Lather. Rinse. Repeat.

AzaleaRSS Website Hosted On Cutest Server Ever, the Pogoplug

AzaleaRSS is both rockin and rollin, and now officially hosted in-house on the most adorable server you've ever seen.







CloudEngine's Pogoplug is a tiny Linux box, smaller than most laptop power supplies. It's made of a power cord, an ethernet jack, a USB port and rainbows.

Behold the Azalea server room:



We've got a whiteboard full of ideas for the next eighteen 'Plugs we buy. Love these little critters!

DataMatrix Barcodes On Irish Chickens

How did I miss this one? It's barcodes! On chickens!

Scientist at the Bioresources Research Centre at University College Dublin have created a way to place 2D DataMatrix barcodes on the beaks, legs and combs of the wee birdies in order to more efficiently track them.

They were careful to use non-alive birds for the testing however, bless their cruelty-free hearts.

“Although these experiments were carried out in the laboratory, real chicken body parts, sourced at poultry processing plants were used. No animals were purposely culled for this research programme as per UCD ethical committee directives.

“In real life situations, ways will have to be found to imprint the barcodes on to live poultry whilst ensuring the safety and wellbeing of the bird.”

Story via The Irish Times

New York Times Notes UPC Barcode's 35th Birthday

The Times takes an interesting look at the UPC code, grandaddy of all modern barcodes. Thanks again, George Laurer!

Bar Codes & beer. Together at last...

What can I say...

Barcode Game That Will Drive You Mad

For a few minutes at least. Gregory Weir's Bars of Black and White is a barcode-based 'escape from a locked room' game that challenges you to scan your way to freedom.

Scritchy-scratchy hand drawn illustrations and figuring out how to kill a big spider make it a whimsical way to waste some time on the company dime. Tell your boss that you're researching auto-ID and real world barcode implementation. That's what I did.

Free desktop wallpaper images

As part of the relaunch of our humble website, we've added a growing collection of free wallpaper images you can download.

So all of you bored with your current desktop background can grab one of our stone & metal, azalea & rhodi photos. They're great as cell phone wallpaper too.

Set a bookmark because there will be a lot more free photos and artwork to come.

Happy Birthday, UPC!

At 8:01 am on June 26th, 1974, the very first ever UPC (Universal Product Code) was scanned at Marsh's Supermarket in Troy, Ohio. The item? A 10 pack of Wrigley's Juicy Fruit gum.

Visitors Can Now Use QR Barcodes to Navigate Port Townsend, Washington

"PORT TOWNSEND -- Visitors to Port Townsend can now scan the city with more than just the naked eye.

Last week, a handful of barcodes -- which literally can be scanned -- were placed in locations throughout town in what's called the Way Finder Project.

Using a cell phone with Internet access and a camera, you can walk up to a code, scan it and pull up a Web site about the location."

That good ol' "Global Supply Chain"

It's not called a global supply chain for nothing. Shipping and distribution are assumed to be international these days. All over the map. Worldwide.

To that end we're now whispering about barcodes in Albanian, Arabic, Chinese, Czech, Danish, Dutch, Filipino, Finnish, French, German, Hebrew, Hindi, Hungarian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Latvian, Lithuanian, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Punjabi, Romanian, Russian, Serbian, Slovak, Slovenian, Spanish, Swedish, Thai, Vietnamese.

Now that's global. And you just know there are barcodes lurking around in there.

azalea.com *finally* gets a makeover

We call it The Mother Ship, sometimes The Vending Machine. Venerable she is but neglected too long.

Over the looong weekend Azalea Software's website has been updated. Including new photos of us.

There's more yet-to-come. Much more...

AzaleaRSS: Free RSS Creation Tool Hits The Interwebs

Version 1.1 of Azalea's free RSS feed maker, Azalea RSS, is now available.

Azalea RSS is a quick and dirty RSS maker that walks you through creating your own RSS feeds. Based in MS Excel, it's user-friendly and as easy as falling off a log. And falling off a log is SO EASY. Trust me, I fall off logs all the time.

Give it a try, RSS wizards!

NeoMedia Wins One For the Dark Side

UPDATED 30 Apr 09: Interestingly, this post sat dormant for weeks and just today three new replies came in a flurry. What a coincidence! One talks of how TinyURL infringes on NeoMedia's patent. One is a reply to another commentor. And one, why, one suggests that I have no testicles! At all! Which is true! But rather a mundane fact to point out, and so angrily (also, Jim, water is wet!). And also, things may be "getting legal", yowza! Not sure what that means but it sounds scary, doesn't it? Eek!

Clearly this economy (and swine flu!) is affecting everyone, creepy mouthpieces for random strangers coincidentally interested in NeoMedia's "interests" and barcode bloggers alike.

Like I said, all y'all folks with dogs in this fight: I'd be taking notes and backin 'em up to hard disk if I were you.




ORIGINAL POST:
After protracted review, the US Patent & Trademark Office recently ruled in favor of evil attorney cabal tech company NeoMedia. For years NeoMedia has argued that they own absolutely everything having to do with barcodes + cellphones, and they own all barcodes + looking them up on the intertubes. They also own a patent on you. And your dog. And your mom.

While the Electronic Frontier Foundation valiantly begged to differ, devoting years and miles of effort, funds and reason to disputing this sort of mercenary dipshittery, it's all over now but the crying.

"Overbroad and invalid patents threaten to chill important innovations, especially for startups and other nascent entrepreneurs. It's important that technology in the public domain stays there." EFF Senior Staff Attorney Jason Schultz said in 2007.

The US PTO has changed all that in one fell swoop of patent validation. NeoMedia can now threaten and actively initiate lawsuits against anyone who creates, uses, promotes or dreams up anything having to do with their special corner of the auto-ID universe. Pay the NeoMedia licensing fee/s now, or pay them after a financially crippling lawsuit- it's entirely up to you!

This would be marginally acceptable if NeoMedia had created a unique technology of their own. But they didn't; these patents are based entirely on murky, factually-suspect claims of prior art. They now have a patent on using barcodes that they didn't create (which are based on font and image technology that they didn't create), with camera phones (which they didn't create) that take photos of said barcodes, the phone applications (that they didn't create) which translate those pictures into data (which they didn't create) which can be used to direct the user to a database (that they didn't create, and don't own) on the internet.

This means that if you scan a barcode that has a URL in it with an app on your cellphone, NeoMedia may attempt to squeeze cash from every developer in the chain: the maker of the barcode, the cellphone app developer, the cellphone maker, the cellphone carrier, and the owner of the destination internet database. Also, of course, your mom.

This means you, Google. NeoMedia's sure to go after the big guys first, right? Some dude who's running from blog to blog threatening lawsuits sure thinks so. Wonder if NeoMedia knows he's picking fights with some very big dogs on their behalf? Of course he could be NeoMedia's president and CEO for all we know (either way, I'd be making a hard copy or ten of all such blog and forum comments if I were, say, Scanbuy or ShopSavvy or ZXing..).

Whatever happens, it will certainly be interesting to watch. Pop some corn and pull up a chair.




US patent #6,993,573

US patent#7,383,209

Barcodes That May Just Prevent Vomiting (and Death)

Two University of Rhode Island researchers and a company called SIRA Technologies have teamed up to create temperature-sensitive barcode ink.

The fancy "proprietary thermochromic printing ink, printed in a non-scannable color..emerges to a scannable, deep magenta when activated. It is therefore capable of adding a temperature and shelf-life monitor to any other barcode thus preventing the sale of contaminated food and archiving the incident."

In English, this means that your grocer can't try to kill you/make a buck with expired products because the barcodes will change color and become unscannable. Man, barcodes really might save the world.

This Friday the 13th is also 1234567890 UNIX time!

In a couple of days it'll be Friday the 13th. Not just any Friday the 13th. It's also 1234567890 in UNIX time at 11:31:30pm UTC (11:31:30 here in Seattle). Read all about it on Slashdot (where else).

This should give all the 666 Mark of the Beast nutjobs something else to ponder.

"Two Steps Forward, 1,400 Steps Back"

An interesting article in Business Daily Africa takes a hard look at how increased business efficiency can lead to a slump in customer service.

"..modern technology came to their rescue by introducing the barcode. Today, every supermarket worth its salt has a scanner system for reading these codes.

In addition, virtually all manufacturers now print the barcodes on products to make it easier for supermarket staff: the bulk packages are now simply unwrapped and the items taken to the shelves directly. This saves a lot of time.

Unfortunately, a new problem has emerged: in the hurry to display products, workers do not take care to ensure that a price tag has been posted on the shelf next to the items.

[]The workload increases as demand for their products rises. Consequently, management begins looking for ways of making work easier for the company. Many times the improvements are made at the expense of customer services."

It's an excellent reminder that progress in business should always be tempered with an eye to that most valuable of creatures, the customer.

Azalea Software as part of Seattle software community

The Washington Technology Industry Assoc. did a wild map of the Seattle software family tree. I'm proud to say that Azalea Software is in the solar system, proud of our lineage as an Aldus spin-off. The only Aldus spin-off still around 16 yrs later.

The only surviving Baby Paul!

666 Mark of the Beast is about to come true!

So some goofball has just patented barcode tattoos for commerce.

Dude, you realize all those fundamental nutjobs are going to go nuts re: 666, Mark of the Beast, Book of Revelation, etc., etc.

Here we go...

Azalea Software Sponsors Winning Lava Lamp Webcam

Azalea Software, publishers of barcode software, are the proud sponsors of JetCityOrange's live Lava Lamp webcam, winner of EarthCam's "25 Most Interesting Webcams 2008".

Azalea Software hosts the webcam on one of its web servers. JetCityOrange benefits from Azalea's generous offer to house the two lava lites on timers and the webcam that broadcasts them across the internet.

This year's winning webcams was selected by a panel of celebrity judges including NY Nicks asst. coach Phil Weber, actor/comedian Pauly Shore, and Beauty and the Geek winner Amanda Corey.

Azalea Software RSS feed Now On Feedster

Azalea Software started the New Year by launching an RSS feed with news and updates about barcodes, barcode software, and related issues. The raw feed is: www.azalea.com/feed.xml.

The Azalea Software feed is also available on Feedster: feeds.feedburner.com/AzaleaSoftware

Coupon Barcodes

In these perilous financial times coupon-clipping is a really good idea.

Barcodes In Space

When you live and work in a tiny, airtight capsule for weeks or months on ends, things get a little messy. When over the years 150-plus roommates move in and out, leaving their various space tools and dirty socks all over, it gets to be a right pig sty. You can never find anything.

The solution, of course (as with all of life's challenges), is barcodes.

Yet Another Cautionary Tale of Inventory (Mis)Management

Volume forty-seven in this series is titled Maybe We Shoulda Kept Tracka' Our Guns, from the Fletcher, NC police department via BlueRidgeNow.

While running a recent inventory check officers discovered that four weapons were missing- including an M-14, a shotgun and two handguns.

“It could be the weapons were taken to a gun shop for repair and it was not documented,” [official George Erwin] said. “The guns could have been traded for others and no paper work was filled out. The guns could have been stolen.”

Oh my! But fear not, citizens of Fletcher, it might only be an inside job:

Erwin also pointed to the fact the department has had a high turnover rate recently and the guns may have been taken by former officers.

Phew! Sleep better now, won't you?



As always happens, the FPD is considering a comprehensive management system after the fact:

“We are making some changes due to this,” he said. “Previously, too many people had access to the supply room. Now we have one officer who has access to evidence and to the supply room. We are also looking to track the weapons by a barcode system.”

Sigh. Manage your inventory before it goes missing, folks.

Intro to azalea.com on YouTube

www.azalea.com introduction by Jerry Whiting, owner

The CueCat: it's *alive*!!!!

Damn CueCat just won't die. Now after all these years, it's been granted a patent! You gotta be kidding me. Someone's been paying a patent attorney all this time!!

Sh*t. Now I have to update my CueCat post mortem.

QR Barcodes for Barack Obama

With the election quickly approaching, QR barcodes decided they couldn't sit on the sidelines quietly any more. It's time 2D barcodes took a stand and had their collective voices heard.

It's unanimous: Barcodes for Obama

Lego QR Code

We all love QR barcodes though maybe not as much as Pedro Morales does. A QR bar code done in Legos. Whodda thunk?

Barcode Dogtags!

Nothing says loving like barcode dogtags! Take my word for it. Or, watch the video on YouTube.

Barcode Tattoo Photo Gallery

No sooner than I put up a new barcode tattoo photography gallery I run into someone working at my local plant nursery sporting yet-another bar code tattoo. Whadda the odds?

Rummaging around Flickr I'm no longer surprise how frequently photos of barcode tattoos turn up. I have literally dozens of barcode tat pictures on JetCityOrange too.

No, I'm not inked.

Steve Jobs has a barcode license plate???

I just got my first ever personalized license plate for my new Smart Car*. Now I hear Steve Jobs has a barcode license plate? How'd he do that?

Well, it isn't a bar code license plate but his car's VIN in a barcode under the plate. Glad we cleared that up.

* mine reads: 3JEWELS

Now it's Amazon and the CueCat

Hey, it's raining CueCats. Here's someone else talking about our favorite extinct auto ID kitty.

The CueCat Rides Again

Admittedly I'm a Luddite when it comes to tiny, expensive electronic toys; I never see the point and I hate carrying yet more crap around (plus they always make them so droppable. WHY WOULD YOU MAKE A THREE-HUNDRED DOLLAR CELLPHONE SLIPPERY?).

But it's with an extra jaundiced eye that I read a breathless review of the Groqit. It's tiny! It scans yer stuff! It keeps you from buying yet another copy of Steel Magnolias!














It's also already been done.

Barcodes in Schools. how long before the kids cheat?

From the Land Down Under comes a story of barcodes for kids' attendance. OK, so a parent wrote a barcode-based check-in system. Children as inventory. As a father of 3, I can relate.

My question is: how long before the little tykes realize they can photocopy their barcodes and have their siblings and friends check them in?

Obama barcode tattoos!

Barcode tattoos, how can you not like 'em? Barack? We love us some Barack.

Put 'em together and whadda ya git? Barack barcode tattoos, that's what! All of this of course begs the question, "Why didn't I think of this???"

Musical Barcodes from Malmö University in Sweden

If you love music and you love barcodes, how can you go wrong with this project? It's from Malmö Univ in Sweden and no I don't speak Swedish but I like what I see in this YouTube video.

The idea behind barcode beats is explained here. Sounds like fun! Do they do the Dead??

One More Reason To Never Leave the House

The NYT has a happy review of the new Ikan grocery scanner, a home countertop item that scans your empties and maintains an online grocery list for you. When the cupboards are bare simply log in, place your order and wait for your replacement sustenance to knock on your door.

Okay, so I love the technology. A consumer-level gizmo that reads barcodes? Yay! A gizmo that reads barcodes and communicates with the interwebs? Super awesome! An "online database of one million products"? Neato!

But we don't get outside enough as it is. Not one of us. We're isolated from other humans in ways unfathomable even 20 years ago. We work online, go to school online, shop online, chat online and meet potential dates and spouses online. Look, it's creepy. Internet-dependent living is just creepy.

I'm as web-addicted as the next nerd but I refuse to give up my scratch-paper-and-pen grocery list. I won't abandon my twice- or thrice-weekly trip to the neighborhood grocery store. At the store I can smell the birthday cakes being made in the bakery. I can ogle the olive bar, admire the asparagus mountains, fondle the navel oranges until I find just the right succulent few. I can chitchat with the checker, smile at the bagger, experience the actual sights, sounds, smells and sensations of an actual public place. And that's super duper awesome if you ask me.

Why we use barcodes for inventory management

This is a textbook example of why one wants to use barcodes for inventory & tracking purposes. Scan, hit the database, take the appropriate action.

Perhaps if CVS & RiteAid had relied on barcodes for tracking merchandise, said merchandise wouldn't be old and out of date.

Hey, wait a minute. Maybe investigators used barcode technology to inspect said stores! Barcodes to the rescue again.

Read the AG's statement here.

Hacking Barcodes!

Barcodes for birds

Just when you think you've seen every barcode use and permutation imagineable along comes barcodes for birds. It all makes perfect sense when you read about it.

Color bands (barcodes) on birds allow for quick identification out in the wild. Still, barcodes for birds...

Ye Olde Barcode Scam Once Again

Oh everybody thinks they can steal using barcodes. Some bozo realizes that UPC barcodes contain a unique number that identifies an item, not the item's price. Soooo, reproduce the barcode found on a cheap widget and slap it on an expensive widget. If the cashier doesn't notice the brand/price difference, you save money. Or should I say you use bar codes to shoplift.

Come on folks. Stealing is stealing. People have been teasing me about it since I began writing barcode software 19 years ago. Yes, I could. No, I haven't. No, I won't. Now go outside and play in the traffic.

I wanna Japanese cell fone that eats barcodes!

Short of moving to Tokyo, I really wanna Japanese cell phone. This insidiously clever barcode-based marketing campaign is brilliant. It reminds me of the cup of noodles monsters of years back.

Watch this video first and then read this article and this one too.

The Best Part Is That It Made the Newspaper

Tennessee mail ends up in a Texas mailbox!






Sure sure. Blame the POSTNET. Blame the OCR. Never mind all the humans that eyeballed it along the way, it's gotta' be the barcode.

"Scanning Miranda" YouTube video

Remember to order your 3 barcode tattoos for a buck from BarcodeFontSoftware.com.

Barcode Tattoos (temporary tattoos but still...)

The barcode tattoo photo gallery over at JetCityOrange is really popular. So that got me to thinking: who else would be interested in a bar code tat?

I'm not inked but every once in awhile I'd like to sport a barcode tattoo. A temporary barcode tattoo will do nicely, thank you very much. And at 3 for a buck, how can you go wrong?

Order yours today!

Barcodes in SE Asia

If you're looking for barcode software in SE Asia try: Hindi, Punjabi, Bengali, Javanese, and Indonesian. Not bad, ehhh?

Barcode Prank Video

Everyone loves a good prank, especially a barcode prank. Watch this video of a great barcode scanning prank.

Barcode scanning prank
by Fippie

Don't like RFID chips? Beat 'em!

I'm no big fan of RFID chips as regular readers of this blog will attest. But whodda thunk someone would document how to destroy RFID chips? With a hammer no less!

China Doesn't Like Barcodes

Azalea software has been selling barcodes worldwide for years now. That includes China, or at least it used to. We seem to have had one visitor on 23sep07 from Beijing and then our traffic from China seems to have dried up overnight. And we even have pages in Chinese too.

The only explanation we can come up with is that our URL hit someone's desk and our about us page did what it's supposed to: tell the world who and what we are.

Guess the Chinese don't like the Tibetan Technology Center or the Burma Media Association, Electronic Frontier Foundation or any one of a number of groups we support. Speaks volumes about Beijing, now don't it?

Our response? Tor. Remember Comrades: information (and people) want to be free!

Thank you for guiding us towards another worthy project we can support!

Barcode Music!

As a fan of 8-bit music I was delighted to stumble across across a way to make music from barcodes.

A grrl nerd doing art with barcodes. I'm in love!

Texas City Smarter Than Federal Emergency Management Agency

The city of Houston, TX has found a unique solution to the frightening disconnection that familes often suffer during disasters. Rather than relying on hand-written signs, word of mouth or spotty cellphone coverage, families, hospitals, evacuation centers and emergency officals can now utilyze barcode bracelets to help locate and track families separated in the chaos of an emergency.


If only FEMA (a division of the Dept. of Homeland Security, doncha know) had this kind of acumen. During oh, say, Hurricane Katrina.

2D Barcodes & High Fashion

One of these days someone is going to bring barcodes to the masses. Today's NY Times has a piece about QR codes on custom scarfes.

Kaywa, the company involved, is in Europe. Phone capabilities are as much a function of the wireless carrier as the physical phone itself. That means yanks have to wait til the Japanese & Europeans figure it all out.

Dennis Quaid Is Down With Barcodes

Imagine my surprise and delight when I read that Dennis Quaid is a barcode fanboy. He's going to sue Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles unless they implement a barcode system.

Hey Dennis, wanna be on my Board of Directors?

Do barcodes need a Wiki of their own?

To quote those involved: "a site for storing user generated information to be stored against a product, identified by its barcode number."

A show of hands please. All in favor say "aye"...

China & Tibet

Sometimes current events are so stark and immediate that they demand that we all do the right thing. To that end, I sent the following email to both the Chinese embassy and the China's ambassador to the UN:

Wang Guangya
Ambassador and Permanent Representative
Chinese Mission to the United Nations,

I would like to lodge a strong complaint about how the People's Republic of China has responded to the recent citizen protests in Tibet and other regions of China.

The violent suppression of these protests, especially those led by Buddhist monks, underlines how misguided Beijing's policy towards Tibet is. His Holiness the Dalai Lama is NOT some evil mastermind behind the current protests. The protests are the direct result of years of discrimination and oppression of the native Tibetan people by the Chinese government.

It is the will of the people to be free and to have control over their lives. This is a univeral wish shared by all people around the world. Yet the official government policy is diametrically opposed to this attainable ideal. Undermining the Tibetan people's struggle for self-determination will result in the undermining of the Chinese government. Remember: the international community has not forgotten Tiananmen Square.

I'm sure you're aware that the whole world will be watching China as the 2008 Olympics approach. Further repression of citizen protests in Tibet and elsewhere will shine an ugly light on an ugly domestic policy. I strongly encourage the Chinese government to stop, pause, and reach out to the Tibetan people and His Holiness the Dalai Lama and open a truly honest and sincere dialog.

All power to the people!


Jerry Whiting, President & CEO
Azalea Software, Inc.
Seattle WA

Barcodes & Christians? What about 666?

Hey. I thought Christians associated barcodes with Satan. You know, UPC barcodes include the Mark of the Beast. The Devil's in bar codes.

Well, here's a church embracing barcodes.

Barcodes in Excel, Word, and Access

Need to make barcodes in Microsoft Office applications? Mail merge with Code 128 barcodes using Excel and Word? Perhaps you're doing UPC barcodes in an Access database.

Wouldn't it be nice to have free sample code like macros, plug-in's, etc. to do all the hard work for you? Heck, who wants to write code from scratch for things like check digits? Not me! I'd rather bolt on a pre-built widget, how about you?

Friday is Leap Day!

Yep, 2008 is a Leap Year. Those of you born on February 29th can get the cake & candles out.

Trivia question of the day: what are those born on Leap Day called? See the above page for the answer to today's question.

Barcodes in Menus?

Most people read about using barcodes in restaurant menus and see some measure of utility in it. It's faster, easier, uses machines instead of people. So goes the logic behind The Deli Touch pen. If that isn't enough, try the video. I can't speak Japanese but it's worth watching just for the end.

Someone says "barcoded menu" and "scanners for all customers" and I hear "prank waiting to happen". How hard can it be to substitute your barcodes for the ones in the menu? Think barcode fonts and Avery laser labels. Take a menu home, scan the barcodes, and figure out what they're doing. Re-do it for them and swap out the menus.

This is from someone who "played with" the CueCat back in the day...

Barcodes & Interior Lighting

Some may think that there's no intersection between barcodes (our favorite topic) and lighting design. Think again. Introducing barcode lights.

An idea whose time has come.

BTW, what do they scan as???

Finally, a reason for cell phones & barcodes

The Voice of the Street from Leif on Vimeo.

Lauren sent me news of this cool street art project that involve cell phones & barcodes. QR codes linked to voicemail tying artist to viewer. It's from The Voice of the Street. Check it out!!!

Can Barcodes Help the Vision-Impaired?

Peter Abrahams hopes so.

"For anyone who is blind or cannot see well the kitchen can be a real challenge. The first challenge is to know what is in all the similarly shaped tins and packets in the cupboard or fridge/freezer. A related challenge is to know what is written on each of them such as the cooking instructions and ingredients.

..Any packaged product has a barcode so this seems the obvious place to start. So scanning the barcode should provide a key to all the information about the content."

Combine barcodes textured with simple bumps or ridges in the packaging with a text-to-speech doohickey, it seems an easy, elegant solution.

All that's left is for the supermarket industry to get on board with a centralized interactive grocery database. A robotic voice reading "Two three four seven six five five eight two three four five" doesn't help much in deciphering a can of pet food from one of corned beef hash (though the distinction between these two particular examples is debatable).

Barcodes in Asia. Here we go!

There's a new barcode site focused on PacRim countries.

It's available in Japanese, Chinese simplified, Chinese traditional, Korean, Vietnamese, Thai, and Tagalog. Oh, and in English too!

Double barcodes

Look what Santa brought me! Double barcodes: UPC and EAN-13!!

They even came with free incense too. Wow, isn't Santa swell? I'm gonna be good all year and get more neat barcodes next Christmas too.

The End Is Nigh

If you're of an eagerly apocalyptic bent, this story
should give you a little shiver of glee.

The UK Ministry of Justice is investigating the use of satellite and radio-wave technology to monitor criminals. Only this time they're not talking about ankle or wrist bracelets, no that technology is yesterday's news. What they'd like to do, if no one minds too terribly much what-what pip-pip, is surgically implant radio frequency identification (RFID) chips under offenders' skin and track them via GPS.

We have wanted to take advantage of this technology for several years, because it seems a sensible solution to the problems we are facing in this area," a senior minister said .. "We have looked at it and gone back to it and worried about the practicalities and the ethics, but when you look at the challenges facing the criminal justice system, it's time has come."

A multimillion-pound pilot of satellite monitoring of offenders was shelved last year after a report revealed many criminals simply ditched the ankle tag and separate portable tracking unit issued to them. The "prison without bars" project also failed to track offenders when they were in the shadow of tall buildings.

The Independent on Sunday has now established that ministers have been assessing the merits of cutting-edge technology that would make it virtually impossible for individuals to remove their electronic tags.

The tags, injected into the back of the arm with a hypodermic needle, consist of a toughened glass capsule holding a computer chip, a copper antenna and a "capacitor" that transmits data stored on the chip when prompted by an electromagnetic reader.


Bah, I say. Does the Ministry of Justice never watch movies? Wise readers will recall that in 87% of all futuristic sci-fi flicks at least one character bloodily rips the Evil Overlord's implant from his/her molar/sinus cavity/neck, typically using a dull pocket knife.

Not to mention the whole IMPLANTING THE BODIES OF HUMAN BEINGS WITH TRACKING DEVICES issue. The world has gone loco, friends. Prepare for the worst.

RFID. Here we go again...

So Wal-Mart is tired of waiting for us all to catch up with them. "We want RFID and we want it now!" is what I'm hearing.

In fact two things about this article stand out: $2 fines for non-compliance and a 2010 sunrise date for item level tags.

It'll be fun to see how supplies react to this new pay-to-play attitude. Somebody may want to alert Wal-Mart to suppliers' pesky need for profits, even on low-cost items. Imposing an RFID tax may not sit well with candy companies for instance. "Pack of gum with your RFID tag miss?"

Meanwhile, I don't even know how to respond to bullsh*t like this. Sheesh...

Barcodes as art.

I thought I was one of the few (twisted souls) who thought that barcodes had a place in art. Looks like I'mn ot alone. Even our pals at GS1 are behind this modest effort.

Obviously not our pals in Fremont trying to lay claim to a patentable idea themselves. This is further proof the idea is universal. Barcodes are now contemporary visual memes.

More prior art, more prior art,...

Real ID doesn't make me feel secure. How 'bout you?

So the Feds in their myopic post-9/11 daze want to impose a pass law on us, oops, I mean "real ID". As if the stuff in my wallet is fake. No, the guv'ment just wants us to have yellow stars with us at all times, with us in a huge database they control (and hence us).

You'd think a Bar Code Nerd who sells barcode software would be in favor of real ID. Heck, we might sell stuff to Uncle and make some do-ra-me. No, I'd rather keep what little privacy and security I have intact thank you very much. Homeland security (sic) aint'. I fly a lot and I don't feel any safer now than I did before 9/11.

Some advocate dropping a heavy object on the back cover of your passport to disable the RFID chip. Some object to further scrutiny of law abiding citizens by Washington. Me? Don't get me started.

Better Living Through Barcodes, part 741

Assisting "roo shooters", reducing retail grocery waste, the South Dakota DMV, making tours of the Library of Congress more accessible, and bringing the soothing trill of birdsong to your ears.


Is there anywhere that barcodes don't reach?

Lego barcode scanner

What house doesn't have Legos lurking in the corners? Nerds of all ages play with Lego Mindstorms. Andreas Peter made a Lego barcode scanner! How cool is that!

XO? X No! G1G2 didn't work for me.

OK. I give up.

I was really, really excited about G1G1. In fact, I ordered two as in G2G2. Early the first morning; I have 5 zeros (000007519). Not bad for someone on the West Coast. Even had a web page setup in advance: www.jetcityorange.com/One-Laptop-Per-Child [no rewritten]

But it was not to be. Let me state upfront that some of the blame is mine. My PayPal address isn't current. But it hasn't been since Feb and it hasn't made a difference until now. Why? Because everytime I order something, the seller gives me a confirmation screen that spits back what I order, how I paid, and where it's going to be shipped. Your site doesn't so I never had a chance to correct the old address.

Most sites generate an automated email that echos what you bought and where it's being shipped. The good ones include tracking information too. Your site doesn't and again I never had a chance to notice the out of date address.

The first I hear from you is the attached email. Problem is, it was sent after the fact. By the time I used the FedEx tracking number to trace the package it had already been delivered. To the wrong address. Worse yet, it was left on the exposed porch of an empty house during the holiday season.

No signature required. Are you kidding me? Laptop computers tossed up against a door? What, to save 2 dollars on shipping? You've got to be kidding me. Add it to my bill.

So I call you. Courtney was very good. In fact, she called me back when we were cut off. Excellent customer service! I ask to speak to a manger.

I then spoke with Daniella. She heard me out. Yes, my PayPal account lists on old address. But it's the same PayPal account I use as the backend to my company's web site. So if I'm not going to notice any one PayPal email given the volume of sales we do online. (We sell barcode software online. I get a PayPal email every time we make a sale.)

I called FedEx and spoke with someone named Eva. She tried to catch the 2nd computer and re-route it to my office. Nope. It too get left on the doorstep of an empty house during Christmas without a signature. Now both machines are gone.

I try to do the right thing. My company contributes to a number of charitable causes: www.azalea.com/AboutUs In fact, the two XO's I was ordering were a test for The Shames Foundation's project in Uganda for AIDS orphans. Steve Shames is skeptical of the XO's vision and these machines were an attempt to change his mind. Nix that idea. We also send hardware and funds to the Tibetan Technology Center in Dharamsala. They too were possible candidates for the XO. Not now.

The amount of money lost isn't a big deal in the larger scheme of things. I hope the XO project enjoys some measure of success. Setting customers' expectations and then not delivering on them stings. But I guess in a sense, it was *I* who set up the expectation. How foolish of me.

Jerry Whiting, President/CEO
Azalea Software, Inc.

Speaking of Barcode Hacks

Pay attention, folks.

Nothing is 100% foolproof- there'll always be thieves, filchers, pinchers, poachers, sticky-fingers and jerks- but you can do your part to make their lives just a little more difficult.

Build some security into your data, protect your database/s and take a good hard look at your barcode processes, from design to printed output.

Everyone loves a good barcode hack, ehhh?

What better way to end the year than a discussion of barcode hacks!

Now go read this too.

Finally, a use for camera barcodes

We've been hearing about the "benefits" of 2D barcodes on cell phones for years now. Tickets, schmickets. That don't do it for me.

But tying a physical object to its Wikipedia entry? That at least holds out some semblence of usefulness. And who brings this cell phone magic to the masses? Semapedia, who else.

Barcodes On The Brain

"The Szhk Biennale of Architecture for 2007 features a commissioned collaboration between members of idu architecture and [daz[. They will be producing a temporary book store and cafe; aptly titled ISBN and Barcode respectively."

I keep trying to convince my family to get a second dog so we can name him RFIDo. Or maybe Modulo. Codabar?

Nothing like a barcode tattoo for the holidays.

We're proud to announce that JetCityOrange's barcode tattoo gallery has reached 60 photos by year end 2007.

Thanks go out to the dozens of people who graciously alllowed JCO to post photographs of their barcode tattoos.

Happy Holidays from us to you!

(and no, it's not Photoshop)

Finally! A good use for RFID

Someone asked me about RFID last night at dinner. I gave my standard response: "Who cares?" reflecting the lack of business opportunity it affords.

Well. Now I've found a reasonable use for RFID: a door opener. Not just any door opener but one that can be controlled via one's cell phone or browser!

Better Living Through Barcodes, part 642

Here at Super Top-Secret Barcode HQ we really do love barcodes. And to a (wo)man, we love to read. So the barcode bat-cave was all a-flutter when we stumbled across Zack Grossbart's fascinating How-To on organizing a home library. Good stuff.

Barcodes in the O.R. A good thing (I think...)

This article talks about surgeons losing sponges during operations. The solution? barcoding the sponges. Scan 'em in, scan 'em out.

Sounds like a great idea. Maybe I should schedule my next operation there. Just don't tell me how many sponges are left inside hapless patients on an average day. I don't wanna know.

A Barcode Web Site for the EU

Those in the European Union now have their own barcode website. In all 23 offical EU languages.

Enjoy!

Azalea Software & Crystal Reports 2008 press release

We've all been holding our breath for months now but it's come to pass. Azalea Software's barcode software is bundled with Business Objects' Crystal Reports 2008. We just did a press release announcing this.

Print Code 39 barcodes right out of the box. Print UPC, Code 128, Interleaved 2 of 5, and POSTNET barcodes by purchasing upgrades from Azalea Software.

Azalea Software Announces New Barcode Websites

One of the joys of selling barcode software is having a growing network of barcode websites. To that end, Azalea Software is happy to announce the latest batch bar code web sites:
UPCTools, C128Tools, C39Tools, I2of5Tools, and POSTools.
And yes, there even more barcode-related sites coming!

Barcode-Free Turkey Day Blogging

From The Wooden Robot, a very handy How-To:



Happy Thanksgiving!

Barcode Madness!

LEGOs™ + lasers? A barcode scanner, natch.










Barcode weirdo extraordinaire Scott Blake has some fun stuff up at YouTube:





A lovely barcode rainbow from Rosistem- First barcoding website from Romania!












And we're pleased as punch to hear that our surreal friends the Barcode Kitties have landed a Happy Meal™-type deal with Peruvian burger chain Bembos.