Here’s something interesting: 2D Barcoding.
You’ve probably seen a weird pattern on your UPS package
which looks like a target with a bunch of tiny hexagonal dots around it-
that’s called Maxicode. It was developed by UPS.
All of this is a step up from “Code 39”, which is the thing we’ve all seen,
and which UPC is based on-
the scannable squares on groceries and other products. Code 39 is
really “code 3 of 9” (sounds like a Borg name) in which every character is 9
stripes, alternating black and white, and three of them are “fat”.
To see an illustration of this, check out my
Code 39 Converter