A sad old day in the barcoding world! Woodland’s died at the ripe old age of 91 from effects of Alzheimer’s disease and complications of advanced age. He had a good innings though and will always be remembered for implementing something that revolutionised the way we do retail.
Woodland and co-inventor Robert Silver were students at Philadelphia’s Drexel University when Silver overheard a grocery-store executive asking an administrator to support research on how product information could be captured at checkout.
The pair earned a patent in the US in 1952 with Woodland’s idea to create a shape of concentric circles. The patent was later sold for just $15,000.
The technology did not catch on until the 1970s, when Woodland’s employer IBM promoted a rectangular barcode that was adopted as the standard.
The modern-day barcode is estimated to be scanned more than five billion times every day. EVERY DAY PEOPLE! Don’t act like you are not impressed!
Source: http://www.aljazeera.com/news/americas/2012/12/2012121404219398922.html
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