It is common to find barcodes affixed to just about every item you purchase nowadays. However, there was a time when they were only used occasionally. The explosion of the popularity of barcode labels has only come about over the last couple of decades.
Barcodes labels are now used for not only retail purposes, but are being used with increasing frequency in shipping, manufacturing, transportation and warehousing applications.
The first conceptual barcodes were introduced by Wallace Flint in 1932. He developed an automatic checkout using punched cards which were read when an item was purchased.
In 1949 a system was developed by Norman Joseph Woodland and Bernard Silver in which a series of concentric circles was used. It was however in 1967 that David J. Collins developed a black and white barcode system, which was read by a laser and is strikingly similar to the system we use today.
Barcode technology is moving forward all the time, with 2D barcode systems now becoming popular. Mobile phone technology has also meant that everyone can have a barcode reader in their pocket and so the system pushes the boundaries even further.