Wasp Barcode Technologies: The Barcode Solution People
Google Celebrates the Barcode
If you've gone to
Google today, you'll notice that their usual logo has been replaced by a barcode. This is to celebrate the 57
th anniversary of the first barcode patent. The barcode is actually scannable and it says "Google". If you have a
mobile computer with an imager, go ahead and try to scan it on your computer screen.
[caption id="attachment_121" align="aligncenter" width="669"]
Google replaced its logo with a barcode of its name[/caption]
On October 7, 1952, Bernard Silver and Norman Joseph Woodland were granted a patent for their invention. They began working on the idea in 1948 after Silver, a graduate student at Drexel Institute of Technology in Philadelphia, overheard the president of a local food chain asking one of the deans to undertake research to develop a system to automatically read product information during checkout. Their first working system used ultraviolet ink, but this proved to fade and was fairly expensive. The patent application described both a linear and "bull's eye" pattern for the
barcode, but it was the linear pattern that eventually was widely adopted.
The first UPC barcode was scanned on June 26, 1974 at a Marsh's supermarket in Troy, Ohio, off a packet of Wrigley's Juicy Fruit. Unfortunately, Bernard Silver died in 1962 before having seen the commercial use of barcode. Norman Woodland was awarded the 1992 National Medal of Technology by President Bush. Neither man made much money on the idea that started a billion dollar business since they sold the patent in 1952.
