How the Barcode Became An Integral Part of Our Lives | The Lightbulb Moment
Join us on a fascinating journey through the history of the barcode, exploring how it evolved from humble beginnings as grocery store symbols to becoming a ubiquitous part of our daily lives. Uncover the story behind this powerful symbol and its transformation into a universal tool used in the purchase of virtually every item. Discover the impact and significance of the barcode in shaping modern commerce and efficiency. 🛒
Watch the full documentary: curiositystream.com/video/4167
The Lightbulb Moment: Barcode
Barcodes have radically changed global commerce, helping fuel the rise of everything from massive companies like Walmart to world powers like China. And it all started with a man daydreaming on a beach in 1949.
#CuriosityStream #Barcode #Technology
It's too bad that the video didn't explain anything about how the barcode works or how they got a 1D barcode to be read in any direction. "Reconfigured the laser" doesn't explain anything. That it can be big or small doesn't explain anything. It's never mentioned that nation wide databases and standard codes had to be created so that the same product is uniquely identified anywhere and no two products in the same industry have the same code. The video boils down to just: Someone had an idea about a magic code, a brighter light was needed, microchips were needed, the shape changed, then it became really popular, then more shapes were created to store more info. There isn't much that the viewer learns that they couldn't have guessed.
This seems like very honest criticism and will hopefully help them improve.
My thoughts exactly
Thank you for this!
You should watch the half as interesting video on barcodes, he explains how they work
Proof that you can squeeze *no information at all* in more than 20 minutes. Don’t forget to squash that subscribe button if you’re hungry for more.
I was a teenage grocery stockboy back in the 1960's and I can tell you, a grocer had to be a genius to keep up with inventory, you had to keep up with the replacement of inventory as items were sold and there were hundreds and hundreds of different items. Constantly, you either ordered too much or you were out of something else. While I wouldn't call it a nightmare, we found ways to get it done, today's people have no idea the mental powers it used to take to run a grocery store. The checkout girls were masters of memory and efficiency, too
Every innovation in retail seems to destroy a lot of jobs and get rids of the good productive workers to be replaced by overworked drones.
Did they use paper ledgers? I imagine grocers couldn't afford mainframe computers in the 60s.
As a long time retail vet, everything from cashier to frieght manager, bar codes are an incredible time saver. They have been ubiquitous during my lifetime but I cant imagine how much more time it would have taken to keep accurate inventory alone in addition to cashier speed and accuracy of individual entries. Neat little documentary! Thanks!
In my middle school, I helped the librarian put barcodes on every book and enter them into the library database. The PC was a Leading Edge 8086 with a whopping 384 kb of ram, a 20 mb hard drive, and one of those yellow monochrome monitors. This eliminated those little checkout cards that were glued inside the book covers.
My grandpa made the computer program that read the vertical barcode,, however he didn't work for IBM. He worked for the ARCO plutonium storage facility in Washington state. IBM wasn't alone in coming up with that "barcode", they picked up technology that ARCO was working on in 1971-73 to organize plutonium storage
I'm sure I saw that in a video here on KZhead a few years ago, someone like Tom Scott did a video on how a nuclear processing company wanted a fool-proof way of tracking every object on site and their system played a part in the fledgling barcode industry. Hah, your grandpa helped change the world!
I thought that idea was picked up from IDs on train cars. Not exactly a barcode yet, but key for considering how to design such a system.
Sounds like bs to me
0:42 _"…he often sat on the oceanfront…"_ This is one of those perfect examples that it is ok to be "bored", and just sit while doint nothing… It seems that nowadays, we don't allow boredom, and grab our smartphones to start scrolling through the socials or just play some game. While it is in those moments that our thoughts take over and come up with all sorts of things.
I too noticed this recently. It is good to be bored sometimes, that's when creativity starts, ideas emergency.
I seem to remember learning about a barcode sorting system used by railroads as far back as the 1950's. The code card was on the side of the car and it was scanned by stationary television camera as the car passed by.
There is a great documentary about that railroad barcode system on KZhead somewhere.
In Bristol UK in the 70s they experimented with giant barcodes at bus stops scanned by helium-neon lasers on the buses.
As a former cashier in the old days I took pride in accurately and quickly entering prices into my register. Barcodes still make errors at times, but significantly fewer than hand entered. Plus the fact that the receipt tells you what you bought, rather than just being a string of numbers. Fun fact: I remember when Mad Magazine came with its first bar coded volume. It was on the front cover with an arrow pointing to it and the caption “the world’s first computer-generated joke.” (If memory serves). Guess they thought it would be a fad.
I hated being cashier😂 useless job in capitalistic world. Imagine, healthy customers with healthy arms wait so another adult push the goods from side to side, its insane 😢😂 self check out is great and i live in a country with no university tuition, yes such thing exist, along with affordable transparent healthcare, i became a scientist, biologist. Imagine all the women who could have been engineers, lawyers, teacher, doctors etc if they had the chance and not forced by economic reason to work in a mind dumbing job as cashier.
1974 paying 67¢ for gum would have been insane. Something is off here. Maybe it was a giant pack of gum. A small pack of gum like that pictured retailed for a quarter well into the 90s.
It was space gum.
16:14 "It always blows my mind barcodes are scanned 6 billion times a day". I find this fact to probably be a very low estimate because my wife alone buys 1 billion new items a day.
You jest, but I also thought this. 6 billion is less than the population of the earth. I buy probably 30 items each week doing my grocery shop for two people, estrapolating just that across the worlds population (assuming everyone was working class birtish people buying 30 items a week) thats around 17 billion scans a day - just for grocery shopping! Then add all the other places they're used. 6 billion seems a gross underestimation, even when being sensible, and even if counting for the third world where barcodes dont really feature in daily life.
😂
@jameshodgetts7541 I think you need to depart your western developed world bubble and learn more about the world around you. On the other hand, I tend to agree 6B is low.
What a wonderful video... This is something I have always wondered, you could say I was, "curious," about barcodes, and now I know the origins (Physically I got how they worked, and how QR codes evolved from them). Great video. Liked, subscribed.
I remember in the 60s that the grocery checker had to not only punch in the price but also the department in the store selling it. The largest department key on the keyboard was “Grocery.” The lazier checkers would often use that key for everything. Thus merchandise sold from the meat department would be credited to the grocery department. It was a real headache.
Those keys have a lot to do with tax as well since in some places, groceries aren’t taxed, but things like hot/prepared foods are or flowers or paper products, pet food, etc. I currently work in a small market in Pennsylvania and if the barcode isn’t working correctly on an item, I still need to use these buttons and while it has an inventory function, it’s also for tax purposes.
Absolutely awesome documentary. I loved every minute of it.
I remember when they started scanning barcodes at the Holiday Mart in Honolulu some 50 years ago. The prices were wrong and you constantly had to alert the cashier to make sure you weren't overcharged.
It did eventually start making my life easier letting me shop with more independence. 😎 I do remember working as a cashier without it being in use for several years though,even when many items had them printed on. The first happy use of it I got with my personal cinder block sized scanner, suddenly being able to scan my cassette tapes and several record albums. Saved my hands from making so many, braille labels, with a slate and stylus, on dymo tape. 😊
Great video... So interesting. Easily overlooked yet critical technology.
Informative and interesting watching thanks
I live over in windsor and I would love to see you do a video on the E.C. Row Expressway in Windsor. It's a short expressway we have that is very unique cause it goes from one side of the city to the other but dosent really connect to anything.
Amazing and well researched docuementary and greatly informative. The most Amazing part you never mentioned at all the consultative firm McKinsey and Associates. The Firm seems to boast that they created the bar code. But your docuementary gives the credit to not only the engineers but two opposing firms namely RCA and IBM to have started this modern convenience which has made our modern world today weather in commerce or retail.
I'm fascinated that the pair applied for a pa-unt at 5:05. Most inventors prefer patents.
A related and interesting story is that of Jerome Schwartz and Symbol Technologies of Long Island, New York. Symbol developed rugged barcode laser scanners for retail and industrial applications. Toys R Us and United Parcel Service (UPS) were early adopters of Symbol’s innovative hand held scanners and portable/mobile data terminals.
Barcode itself is not so innovative, but the system that reads barcode is more interesting. I am impressed by the machine that reads those data with accuracy, which has actually revolutionised the world.
Big Box stores really were the death knell for department stores. They offer many of the same product categories, but in an even more convenient manner and the only two things they don't offer (large furniture and appliances) can be found in other stores, where it is more appropriate to go for a larger selection anyway. It used to be that big box stores just didn't have the same selections of things like clothing and kitchen or housewares and were still more focused on the grocery section, but that hasn't been the case since the late 90's. Nowadays, you're lucky if your big box store still has a quarter of the store devoted to grocery. Not that the selection has diminished, but that the size of modern big box stores has really ballooned over the years into truly gargantuan proportions. And, unfortunately, department stores just can't compete with that convenience or the broader selection of more specialized stores. Particularly when most developers go to the trouble of soliciting companies with offerings that fill in the gaps of their anchor stores to rent store fronts in their shopping centers for more comprehensive offerings. My local shopping center has a Target as the anchor store, a BJ's for bulk purchases, a Michaels for arts and crafts specialization, a Kohl's for clothing specialization, a Dick's Sporting Goods for sports specialization, a Rack Room Shoes for footwear specialization, and a Best Buy for electronics and appliance specialization. The developers really did try their best to make it a one-stop shopping location, despite the fact that the need for substantial parking means that you still need to drive around the shopping center unless you want to be very tired from walking.
Could it be that bar codes could be the segway into image identification? I have seen stores that can cash you out based on what you put on a table or hold in your hand. ( Circle K gas station IE )
So glad we adopted Yoopsie. She's been a big help.
The humble barcode revolutionized the entire planet!
Great ideas, real forward thinking from the Boomers. Great breakthroughs and real innovation came from the "Boomer" & "X" Generations , which is still in use today. It's bite sizes documentaries like this one that allows people to appreciate the sometimes mundane, around uas a Simple thing like a barcode, the unbelievable impact it had worldwide. After watching this short documentary, I realized that in an era of instant information, that we do not have enough knowledge.
What a genius!
The Bar Code was first developed to play the home organ for children. It was developed by Casio for their home organ players.
THE DESCENDENTS OF ONE OF THESE GUYS HAS A RIDICULOUS MANSION LIKE 10 MINUTES FROM MY HOUSE
This is a lot like Leonardo da Vinci inventing the helicopter. The inventor/invention had to wait for the technology to catch up with it. It's crazy to think that this guy invented something that would not be practical to use for at least another 20 years.
Is crazy that the improvement, just increased profits... no lower prices
The white is the data, the black separates each number. I wrote software for a manufacture that had to print UPC numbers on their price tags in the early 90s.
I didn't hear anything about rtp in nc research triangle park
Born 1951, so we did inventory the old way!
What did you use? Paper ledgers?
Yes, an experience economy can reduce theft by offering intangible experiences that are less susceptible to theft compared to physical goods.❤🎉
Why can't I print out a giant barcode or maybe just chain a bunch of smaller capacity barcodes together and store data this way? I'm aware of how much less dense it's going to be than the much more standardized methods like a memory card or something, but I feel like there's some potential in at least making something like this a standard. I'm sure a very large or lots of chained together barcodes would still be more data dense than say base64 encoded data
Hopefully they'll do a follow up on QR code :)
We use qr code on our phones
1. Nothing is stopping you from creating a giant barcode. The only question is why you would want to do so. The alternating field lines of a magnetic data tape (or floppy disk or hard disk...) and the pits and lands of a compact disc are essentially just bar codes imprinted in a different medium. 2. Base64 and bar codes have very different purposes. Base64 (and similar formats such as uuencode) are already a binary based encodings that are meant to be stored on electronic media. They are simply meant to make data binary safe for protocols that would otherwise require escaping for special characters. Meanwhile, the strength of bar codes is that they offer a machine readable form of data that is easy to attach to physical items that would otherwise offer no other electronic connectivity. Very different purposes.
4:50 Maybe that's the reason mall "Target" is named "Target"
What a fascinating journey behind one of the most ubiquitous innovations of our time! 🔍 Joseph Woodland's creativity and persistence in developing the barcode exemplify how simple ideas can have profound impacts on industries worldwide.
Couldn't agree more! Simple ideas make the best solutions.
22:04 the picture kind of suggest that QR codes are from 2020, when in fact they are from 1994.. I have used them for more than a decade and in Japan they have apparently used them for decades
I don't know that having a lot of information in the barcode really matters, except maybe in very special cases. Generally it only needs to identify the item-the product, or in some cases the serial number as well. You don't need a lot of bits to nail that down. The other information can be retrieved online, more or less instantaneously. Of course, that wasn't the case in the early years of the UPC.
Uhhhhh.... the barcode does only contain a number that can be looked up for manufacturer and product, with less "data" we would have run out long ago.
@@natelevy1040 Pretty much what I was saying. Barcode generally is just to identify the item. We can do without the affectation.
@ronaldgarrison8478 Uhhhhhh.... not pretty much, it is just the item number encoded into scanable lines. There is no hidden information about the product.
@@natelevy1040 Please start making some sense. First, "Uhhhhhh...." is frankly condescending. Don't say it again. Second, we both know what the barcode contains, so why are you even saying this? Just tell me what the actual point of disagreement is, or quit wasting everyone's time.
@ronaldgarrison8478 Uhhhhhhh... you said "I don't know that having a lot of information about the product really matters..." but a UPC bar code does not contain ANY information ABOUT the product aside from the manufacturer and product ID. It is literally a different way to represent a number that can be easily scanned to be referenced to their database. The problem with the quantity of numbers being finite is it limits the number of products. If it were smaller we would have run out a long time ago, but with the ever growing number of products available it is a problem we're facing today.
Fun fact: Walmart, Target, K-Mart, and Kohl's were all founded in 1962
4:59. Yes. That is anatomically correct. ;)
Not sure if true.but a friend tdnme her grampa help invent the bar code. Maybe as in the machine or something. I was to young to ask her to clarify at the time.
Somehow the script feels like a highschool essay,, the presentation is still good tho..
So the answer to "who invented the UPC" is Woodland?
The older I get, the more I wish I could go back to the days when things were slower and more personal. I know it's all rose-coloured glasses, and the "good ol' days" weren't that good, but I hate when speed and efficiency are prised above all else. It feels like humanity gets lost in the race to go ever farther and faster.
This video had a lot of "fluff" in it. Not many details, probably could've finished the video in 3 mins
Pretty good video, but should have left out the recap at the end in favor of actually explaining how it works, it's not that complicated
And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name.
Who says bar codes can't be adulterated and glue is perfect.
It is good that IBM still exist today.
While barcodes is still being use. QR codes will likely be its successor.
There are “t” sounds in patent. Diction is key if you’re are performing voice over. It’s “paTentT” not pa’ en
10:33 Fun fact: His full name is George Joseph Laurer - His first, middle & last name all have 6 letters. Leading to the urban legend that barcodes are the mark of the beast 666.
And now it is being replaced by radio frequency tags.
Bar codes are not likely to be replaced anytime soon. They're just too cheap and easy to create. All you need is a printer. Meanwhile RFIDs require special equipment and materials to manufacture and encode.
Narrator sounds clueless
except for hobby lobby!
The History Guy did this documentary better 2 years ago. He actually explains things and doesn't shy away from technical information or dumb down facts: kzhead.info/sun/fZF6qbFxpHV6jGw/bejne.html&ab_channel=TheHistoryGuy%3AHistoryDeservestoBeRemembered
the bar code didnt really take off until the 1980s or 1990s at all. even then most consumers didnt like it and some would avoid buying products that had barcodes in favor of ones that did not if they had a choice. even now over 40 years since the 1980s when it was prevalently adopted in 2024... it hasnt lived up to its potential or expectations its still not standardized or uniform, each store or company or warehouser or distributer has their own bar code or bar code system or way of reading barcodes, back in the 1980s you could find multiple barcodes on a single product and clerks had to try to remember which one to scan/read or you had 4 layers of stickers where each step in the supply chain put a different barcode sticker on you can still sometimes today find 2 occasionally 3 layers of barcodes on some products you still can't get barcode stickers or printers or labels or software/inventory management programs to barcode and keep track of your own things or a program that can read the existing barcodes on your books and other belongings to keep track of them and help you organize things.
qr codes are magic when they work...more often then not they dont work or you dont know how to or cant figure out how to scan them.
Sadly Marsh no longer exists.
Knowing how it works, this video is a bit lacking
...
Crop circles 😂
I liked the old way. Life was slower then and a lot more enjoyable. You interacted with real people in the real world.
Yes I agree, and most of all, the cast register gets lazy here and lazy don't use their brain calculating how to give change most of them don't these days and the old days in the 70s and 80s they were more smart the cash registers they now to count give out change today almost nothing, because it's written on the computer on the monitor for them how much change to give out
😂😂😂😂 yeah live with fear of third world war, women had less rights, children and wives were beaten to death at homes and schools bc it was legal, stuff was not available unless people had to sew, bake, knitt, build, clean themselves when you had a wive as free slave of course no problem , pousonous, toxic stuff was sold as helpful tools while male producers protected their genitals but factory female worker died horrible deathes, people couldnt get information as its available as today. Women worked in mind dumbing job like cashier, while they could be lawyer, scientist, doctors, engineers, teachers and more. I worked as cashier, its one of the useless jobs on earth, pushing goods from side to side all day long while healthy customers could have been self check out themselves for decates ago. 😂😂😂 live in past feels better bc its the biologic, physical best time of the own body before decay and aches creep up and even males go through hormonal change.
You'd prefer store owners lose untold time and money on an antiquated system just so you have a cashier to talk to once in a while?
Sounds like you're pretty needy or lonely if you need a cashier to interact with you for your day to be worthwhile.
You need a cashier to speak with you to make your day worthwhile?
The video is interesting. The added background noise ("music") is 70% too lound and generally bloody annoying and distracting. What's the purpose of it? Thumb down. If I want to hear music, I use spotify.
wel,,,the 3 unnumbered lines in all barcodes represent teh number 6 so thats how it became an integral part of our lives
Lol so no one is gonna credit Japan for creating the QR code wow
You mean Japan.
@@n9wox oh was it Japan? My bad then credit Japan
this is just a repackaged video from cheddar and i’m mad
It's a collab, yo
What the hell is this new thing sweeping America that I absolutely despise. More and more people, especially young people, have stopped pronouncing the t in the middle of words. Like when she pronounced patent as “pah-ent” or Colton is pronounced “Cole-in” with that aweful glottal stop. It’s like people are actively trying to sound stupid.
This is OK... but not that detailed. Also, being narrated by someone with 'valley girl' inflections is painful to the ears...
Filling for a pa in 😂 pronouncing the t must be sacrilegious to youth today.😂 patent became pa ' in or important became imporan. On and on. 😂
Did Wendover guy learn intonation from this lady?