Check This Out: The UPC Code Turns 40
On June 26, 1974, a customer in Troy, Ohio placed a packet of Juicy Fruit Gum on a conveyor belt at a Marsh Supermarket in Troy, Ohio. Seconds later, the cashier ran the packet across an optical scanner and when 67¢ appeared on the register—accompanied by the now-familiar little beep—shopping entered the digital age. It was the first purchase using a Universal Product Code.
Happy 40th birthday, UPC.
Even newborns get tracked—with coded wristbands that ensure that mom and dad go home with the right tot.
Those vertical black-and-white bars with the 12 tiny digits are everywhere now, and have multiple uses beyond shopping. Overnight delivery services use them to track packages. Security guards record their rounds at night by scanning barcodes placed strategically inside vacant buildings. Even newborns get tracked—with coded wristbands that ensure that mom and dad go home with the right tot.
While the UPC Code celebrates the big Four-Oh, its close relative, the QR Code, marks its 20th birthday this year. Originally designed by a Japanese company to track the movement of car parts at a Toyota assembly, QR codes (Q.R. stands for “Quick Response”) did not become popular on a widespread basis until the rise of smartphones and apps to read the codes.
QR codes are primarily used to convey digital information directly to consumers. Most of us are familiar with them through their appearance on marketing materials such as movie posters or magazine ads which may link to a website. But recently they’ve been making their way onto more imaginative places like YouTube videos, business cards, and even tombstones—yes, tombstones, where you can scan a code and read an online obituary as you contemplate your loved one’s final resting place.
From newborn UPC bracelets to tombstones with QR codes, it seems we may be destined to be coded for life.
To celebrate the birthday of the two cousins, we collected a few interesting facts about each.
•QR Codes hold 100 times more data than UPC codes
•You can generate your own QR code free on the web
•To get a UPC Code, you have to join a nonprofit called GS1 and pay a fee of $250 for one to ten products
•The first proposed UPC codes looked like a bullseye
•Arlington National Cemetery does not permit tombstone QR codes
•The largest QR code on record was created by Audi as a promotion to celebrate 100 years of the car. It measured 1,711 square feet. When photographed and reduced for scanning, it revealed a 15-second animated commercial.
Read more here: Check This Out: The UPC Code Turns 40