Companies are implanting bar code scanners in pens, key fobs, cell phones and pagers.
They aim to build a business on bar code registration fees and a pay-per-swipe from retailers.
Norman Joseph Woodland, the co-inventor of the bar code, died this week at 91.
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As long as the design can carry a bar code, Best Buy will consider it, Platt says.
Another kind of sensor technology, the nano bar code, is being developed by Nanoplex Technologies in California.
In store coupons get pushed to your device with a bar code to be scanned for instant redemption.
The dead woman has a bar code tattooed on her arm, and her face has been smashed in.
Recipients print a coupon with a bar code that includes the account number, and mail it in with a check.
Aston stayed invested in Symbol Technologies despite its bad management team, Zerhusen says, because of its niche bar code technology.
When they get to the drop point, they just scan their bar code and place the already-tagged bag on the belt.
Through iPhone and Android apps, customers simply scan the bar code on a prescription to alert their Walgreens pharmacy to refill.
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By scanning a bar code in the store, Amazon would give the customer a 5 percent discount, up to five dollars.
The blisters, each with its own bar code, move to a collating table and are rearranged in a pattern before getting bagged.
But the black matrix bar code symbols have become a harbor for malicious code writers who devise ways to steal personal data.
Future forestry concessionaires will be obliged to attach a bar code to each tree they fell (and the stumps they come from).
He also sees a trend toward e-gift cards or virtual gift cards, which boil the card down to a bar code--no plastic necessary.
When users are in a store considering whether to purchase an item, they can punch in its bar code number on their phones.
When the legislation comes into force in 2016, pharmacists and hospitals will be required to scan the bar code to ensure the product is legitimate.
To use a card at checkout, a cashier can either scan the card's bar code from the smartphone or type in the member's ID number.
Instead of labels, GenVault puts a tiny bit of unique rice DNA into each human cell sample, a sort of permanent bar code for the samples.
With BMW for instance, consumers can visit a Web page and print off a simple bar code which they then show in front of their Web cam.
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Placing a wine glass with a tag similar to a bar code on the table, for example, could call up details about the wine and its vineyard.
Those without printers can grab a free PayNearMe card at one of 7-Eleven's 6, 000 locations and use the card's bar code in lieu of a printed sheet.
Using its bar code, investigators for the Food and Drug Administration have traced the bag back to a single spinach packager, Natural Selection Foods of San Juan Batista, Calif.
Good Guide , for example, allows smart phones to scan your bar code and immediately rank your product and potentially suggest a more sustainable alternative on the next shelf.
Along with Motorola, Connect Things and bar code giant Symbol Technologies, AirClic has raised half a billion dollars to form a company that will put scanning technology into wireless devices.
The prototype unit here in Germany was showcased alongside of the GP-1 GPS dongle and a BR-1 bar code scanning module, with the latter meant more for governments and enterprises.
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The obituaries lauding the accomplishments of Norman Joseph Woodland, co-inventor of the bar code, also offer a cold rebuke of the man who claimed the same thing about himself: Jerome Lemelson.
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Think of the lowly bar code that makes the lines go faster at the check-out counters, raises the productivity of the check-out girls and boys, and relieves them of the need to do arithmetic.
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