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Barcode co-inventor George Laurer dies aged 94:
George Laurer, the US engineer who helped develop the barcode, has died at the age of 94.
Laurer died last Thursday at his home in Wendell, North Carolina, and his funeral was held on Monday.
[...] It was while working as an electrical engineer with IBM that George Laurer fully developed the Universal Product Code (UPC), or barcode.
He developed a scanner that could read codes digitally. He also used stripes rather than circles that were not practical to print.
The UPC went on to revolutionise "virtually every industry in the world", IBM said in a tribute on its website.
[...] The first product scanned, in Ohio in June 1974, was a packet of Wrigley's Juicy Fruit chewing gum. It is now on display at the Smithsonian National Museum of American History in Washington.
Fellow IBM employee, Norman Woodland, who died in 2012, is considered the pioneer of the barcode idea, which he initially based on Morse code.
Although he patented the concept in the 1950s, he was unable to develop it. It would take a few more years for Laurer to bring the idea to fruition with the help of low-cost laser and computing technology.
(Score: 3, Touché) by barbara hudson on Wednesday December 11 2019, @04:37PM
That is so 20th century. He has a QR code, which you can use to follow him in death as he gets embalmed and makes that final journey, and beyond.His estate will continue to earn money from his sponsored posts.
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