Cap’n Crunch or AIDC – Which Do You Notice More?

It’s hard to believe RFID technology has been around since WWII. Though somewhat different, RFID and barcoding technology is not new, but both are core elements of Automatic Identification and Data Capture (AIDC). If you haven’t noticed barcodes on practically everything, than the evolution of technology and barcode management has definitely done its job correctly. Before barcodes and host systems that store the information, the organization of products was a manual process that required a great amount of time, money and resources.

There are major benefits to using AIDC:

• Automatically recording these activities
• Reducing labor costs
• More complete and accurate information than manual record keeping

As I sat down with a delicious bowl of Cap’n Crunch® Berries this morning, I paid more attention to the barcode on the back of the cereal box. Fascinating, these barcodes are everywhere. It is such an organized and advanced system that I wanted to dive into it more. I began to wonder how often do local government and municipalities use this technology; is it just for food and beverage distribution?

Government has definitely incorporated these technologies, and many of us don’t even realize it. That’s how good it has become – so good that it has become unnoticeable. We don’t acknowledge or even notice the use of these technologies in traffic and parking tickets (until it’s too late), the DMV system, voting booths, census statistics, and so on. Think about the inventory the Department of Defense has? Think they are taking advantage of RFID and barcodes? You bet they are.

Why should we really care? Well, keep in mind that our tax dollars help fund these systems, so it’s important to keep them running as efficiently and productive as possible. If almost everything state and federal agencies did was manually input into a system, costs would probably be a little higher.

I hope the next time you sit down for your morning bowl of cereal, you’ll think about RFID and barcoding a little differently, and the other industries using these technologies.

-RS

Zebra Barcodes – Literally?

A short post today, but nonetheless interesting. I stumbled upon an article that blends nature and the AIDC industry perfectly into one another…I hope the folks at Zebra are on this!

An Update to the Ferrari Barcode “Scandal”

As you likely saw (and see right under these here words, in the post below), there was a bit of scandal around the Ferrari F1 team and whether they were using subliminal advertising in barcode images.

Well, our good friends at Zebra Technologies sent out a follow-up on the issue this morning. Good thing, since we had completely missed the article!  So, what was Ferrari’s response? You’ll have to click here to find out.

Happy Friday everyone, and to all the mothers out there, we extend you a very lovely Mothers Day weekend!

Ferrari’s, Marlboro, Subliminal Advertising and… Barcodes!?

Ducati motorcycle with barcode-like image; courtesy of http://www.gomonews.com

Not a list of items you would normally come across, I know. But apparently, according to this article, there has been a bit of an uproar on the potential use of barcode images that look like a pack of Marlboro cigarettes on Ferrari F1 cars.

Of course, whether it does actually look like a pack of Marlboro’s is being contested between European anti-tobacco groups and the Ferrari/Marlboro side. On our side of things, what’s most interesting is that if you check out the GoMo link, they mention that the barcode is so realistic, that barcode software actually tries to interpret it! Art imitates life?