(The Conversation) — Few objects in the world are more immediately recognizable than the barcode. After all, barcodes are all around us — more than 6 billion are scanned every single day. They’re on ...

Before the barcode was introduced, managing inventory from label to self to checkout was time consuming and manual. Not only was this process inefficient, but there ...

Anyone who has seen a barcode knows what they are instinctively. That irregular pattern of thick and thin lines across the back of a product or on a label is hard to mistake for anything else. With ...

The first modern barcode was scanned 50 years ago this summer—on a 10-pack of chewing gum in a grocery store in Troy, Ohio. Fifty is ancient for most technologies, but barcodes are still going strong.

If barcodes took over, opportunities for such bargain-hunting would disappear. These worries soon fizzled out. But barcodes have always upset some people. To a fanatical few, they are nothing short of ...

Daniel Liberto is a journalist with over 10 years of experience working with publications such as the Financial Times, The Independent, and Investors Chronicle. Dr. JeFreda R. Brown is a financial ...

Editor’s note: The views expressed in this commentary are solely those of the writers. CNN is showcasing the work of The Conversation, a collaboration between journalists and academics to provide news ...