Julian Humphries wrote:
Everybody assumes barcodes are something special. I
predict with 3-4 years they will be obsolete, that scanners will
read Times Roman numbers as well as they read |||\|/!! (put your
favorite barcode here).
In fact, another technology is already being developed by the South
Africans, as I recall from a message last year: use of a microchip
for each box/bottle/specimen. The codes could then be read by running
a reader across the storage shelving. Perhaps someone else remembers
more of the details?
I checked into this technology, too, its call PIT (passive interogative
transitors). They use it to track stocked salmon and the like. But,
two problems: cost $2-4 (US dollars) each and they only hold about
96 bits at best, about 12 bytes. Enough for a museum abbreviation and
number, but not enough for real data. I tried to convince a mfg. we
might buy a few million, but he said even then, we would be talking
75c each. They have to be encoded is the problem and that is a custom
operation. Maybe in a few years this will be developed further. One
nice feature, they are pretty resistant to fluids (but I couldn't get
30 year guarantees in alcohol!).
4 messages in edu.ku.nhm.mailman.taxacom, Bar Codes in tracking samples
