It's Springtime For Symbology - Everything Is Coming Up Color :: Symblogogy

In an announcement released at the beginning of this week, Microsoft announced that it has reached a licensing agreement with a Swiss agency charged with administering the ISAN numbering system. What makes this announcement unique is that this agency plans on using a new twist on the old, tried and true, bar - space - bar methodology of automatic identification … a barcode in color! What this will do is add another dimension to the process of scanning the barcode that allows for greater information to be stored and greater security to be achieved.

The barcode technology that Microsoft Research has developed is known as “high color capacity barcode format”, or HCCB. This is not the first application of adding the element of color to a symbology … but it is the first time someone has placed color on a standard barcode format to deepen the ability of the barcode to store and secure information … while presumably keeping the integrity of the barcode to be scanned by linear laser scanners.

The only way to get the full benefit of the addition of color is to read the symbology with an imager/camera. Technologically, lasers can not discern color in that they are only able to read a standard barcode via a timeline analog approach (bar, space, bar, space) ... then convert the signal to digital in order to decode the barcode.

Excerpts from IT Jungle -

Microsoft Breaks the Color Barrier for Barcode

by Alex Woodie - The Windows Observer - Published: April 18, 2007