Google home page question

[David]

I go onto the homepage and get a bar code rather than the page name...anyone else ? and what is it

[Rik]

I get it too, David. At a guess, it's the anniversary of the introduction of the bar code today.

[David]

Odd I guess it will be explained through the course of the day......who has that phone ?we can get them to scan it for us 

[Rik]

Barcodes were patented on October 7, 1952...

[David]

Was it really that long ago...was that here of the states ? no I wont google it destroys conversation some times

[Rik]

The States, David.

[David]

I am guess did it come about or discovered,any connections to the space programmes ?

[Rik]

From Wiki:

In 1932 business student Wallace Flint of Harvard Business School wrote a thesis promoting an "automated grocery store" using punch cards, which customers would hand to a clerk, who would load them into a reader, causing flow racks to deliver the desired products, after which an itemized bill would automatically be produced.[2] In spite of its promise, punch card systems were expensive, and the country was in the midst of the Great Depression, and the idea was never implemented.

In 1948 Bernard Silver (1924–62), a graduate student at Drexel Institute of Technology in Philadelphia, overheard the president of a local food chain asking one of the deans to research a system to automatically read product information during checkout. Silver told his friends Norman Joseph Woodland (1921-) and Jordin Johanson about the request, and the three started working on a variety of systems. Their first working system used ultraviolet ink, but this proved to fade and was fairly expensive.[2]

Convinced that the system was workable with further development, Woodland quit his position at Drexel, moved into his father's apartment in Florida, and continued working on the system. His next inspiration came from Morse code, and he formed his first barcode from sand on the beach when "I just extended the dots and dashes downwards and made narrow lines and wide lines out of them."[2] To read them, he adapted technology from optical soundtracks in movies, using a 500-watt light bulb shining through the paper onto an RCA935 photomultiplier tube (from a movie projector) on the far side. He later decided that the system would work better if it were printed as a circle instead of a line, allowing it to be scanned in any direction.

On 20 October 1949 they filed a patent application for "Classifying Apparatus and Method", in which they described both the linear and bullseye printing patterns, as well as the mechanical and electronic systems needed to read the code. The patent was issued on 7 October 1952 as US Patent 2,612,994. In 1951 Woodland and Johanson moved to IBM and continually tried to interest IBM in developing the system. The company eventually commissioned a report on the idea, which concluded that it was both feasible and interesting, but that processing the resulting information would require equipment that was some time off in the future.

In 1952 Philco purchased their patent, and then sold it to RCA the same year. In 1962 Silver died in a car accident.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barcode

[David]

  For that interesting and not uncommon for this type of thing being invented at a time of hardship.....

[Rik]

That and war, David.

[David]

True....


Just noticed I spelt Question wrong   

[Rik]

You did?

[David]

  Its my day off and thats my excuse it wet in the garden so I have decided to have a day for me......

No shopping and got the place to myself 

[Rik]

Sounds like a plan. I'll be gone for a while today, I've got to see my doctor for a checkup.

[David]

Good luck Rik how did Friday go ?

[Rik]

That's why I may be some time today.

[David]

  Hope alls OK

[Rik]

Thanks.

[talos]

If you run the mouse pointer over it a small explanation pop's up

[David]

So it does.................have a coconut 

[talos]

TA!

[David]

  

[Baz]

If you run the mouse pointer over it a small explanation pop's up

yes it also is a link to the search from it.Google does that with other pictures in its title....keep checking when they next change it

[David]

It a good learning curve for me..

[Sebby]

David, whenever Google changes its title image, it is hyperlinked to whatever it's in aid of.