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Bar Code Revolution! With more than just lines and rectangles, Japanese company Design Barcode works around the basic elements of a barcode and infuses real, functional barcodes with creative designs and silhouettes. See barcodes as tomatoes, stomachs, rain, pianos, guns, train tracks, waterfalls, cliffsides, and yes, even combovers.
posted by Lush on Aug 15, 2007 - 46 comments

Barcodepedia: A community based, online barcode database.
posted by onkelchrispy on Jul 26, 2006 - 13 comments

Semapedia : The latest innovation in combining elements of wikipedia, google maps, camera phones, and 2d barcodes. I imagine this to only be useful for tech savvy tourists, but all the same, it doesn't mean someone shouldn't go about pimping metafilter.
posted by thecollegefear on Nov 1, 2005 - 20 comments

Interested in QR codes? Make your own here.
This article, in Hypulp, describing how text and data can be coded into noiselike pixel patterns, was fascinating. It made me look for a way to generate these codes myself. Thanks gen for yesterday’s link to Hypulp.
posted by Termite on Apr 15, 2004 - 12 comments

Barcodes are really cool. This guy's apparently historical site generates barcodes for numerical values which are mostly used in retail stores, but new "symbologies" have arisen since then. Some (Code 39 and Code 128) can translate alphanumerics, which is way fun (you have to specify the 'T' parameter as either of the aforementioned symbologies)!
I admit it: The new version of XScreensaver inspired this post.
posted by magikeye on Nov 5, 2003 - 10 comments

We've discussed it before, but RFID, that fun-loving little radio transmitter that can be attached to everything from that stereo system to a carton of milk, is plowing ahead faster than you can say "unregulated." Earlier this year, Wal-Mart issued a mandate that required its top 100 suppliers to include RFIDs on their merchandise by 2005, bringing new meaning to the phrase "panties in a bunch." (Incidentally, Wal-Mart was also the benign corporation that ushered in bar codes for mass consumption in the late 70s and early 80s.) With no regulations on the table, the New York Times reports that the Defense Department plans to issue a statement requiring all suppliers to use RFID. Hitachi has even offered to put it in your currency. Imagine a store a few years from now that can track all of the objects in your cart, and that, thanks to a microscopic RFID stuck to your shoe when you slide through the doors, can determine how many seconds you or your children react to a display. Imagine a world that tracks exactly where each one of your dollar bills go. (So much for the anonymity of johns and porn enthusiasts.) Is this the kind of world we want to abdicate to large retail corporations? Is this the kind of information that governments or private institutions are entitled to know? Discuss.
posted by ed on Sep 29, 2003 - 96 comments

From MIT's Media Lab: "The Corporate Fallout Detector reads barcodes off of consumer products, and makes a noise similar to a gieger counter of varying intensity based on the social or environmental record of the company that produces the product"
posted by sharksandwich on Jul 25, 2003 - 18 comments

Russians with a barcode fetish
produce some beautiful images (via fark)
posted by delmoi on Sep 1, 2002 - 18 comments

Catalogue your personal library... I have a sizeable library, and have long wanted to catalog the whole thing for insurance purposes and for general gee-whiz potential. The prospect of hand entering information for each of the books, though, has kept me from doing anything. Now, thanks to a link at PB's site, I've got the itch again... and something to scratch it.

Note to Mac users: Mac-Barcode has a USB scanner available.
posted by silusGROK on Apr 26, 2001 - 27 comments

"As of November 2000, I will no longer respond to questions concerning this subject." So says frustrated inventor of the UPC barcode George J. Laurer. You know, the question about barcodes, 666 and the Mark of the Beast. "It is simply a coincidence like the fact that my first, middle, and last name all have 6 letters. " Sure thing, George, we really believe you...
posted by lagado on Dec 8, 2000 - 8 comments

Damn! They sure are pushing this obnoxious cuecat thing, aren't they? Informercials galore. I don't know about your area, but I can hardly turn on the tv anymore without seeing how "Digital Convergence" crap is going to better our lives. Now they're trying to give this cat thing away. Let me get this straight: you swipe the cat over any barcode, and it takes you straight to a commercial for what you just bought. No more need for silly content on the Web! Now the Internet can be nothing but banner ads 24 hours a day! Ooh! Sign me up! *rolls eyes*

By the way, Happy Voting Day. =)
posted by ZachsMind on Nov 7, 2000 - 2 comments

Superfluous and unnecessary. The :Cue Cat reader has insinuated itself into the very fabric of the Dallas Morning News, promising links to "expanded content" and "special promotions" by using this $50 future garage sale item. Is there a real need for bar code scanners in the average household? Or is :Cue Cat merely artificially creating a need for their services?
posted by ethmar on Oct 3, 2000 - 13 comments

The Attorney General's Office just released the results of it's sixth annual holiday scanner accuracy survey (betcha didn't know you already missed five of these puppies, eh?) The survey unearthed an overall scanner error rate of 16.8 per cent, of which 85 per cent of the errors were overcharges. I always thought those cashiers at Sears looked shifty.
posted by grant on Nov 24, 1999 - 0 comments

Have you ever wondered about what bar codes really mean? Or how to generate them? Barcode 1 is a neat resource. Even cooler is the Barcode Server, which will generate codes for you. Finally, you can look up bar codes for your favorite products at the UPC Database.
posted by tdecius on Sep 18, 1999 - 0 comments