Remember
when we used to buy articles like toys and others, the shop owner would look at its base and
tell the price – also would discount it by say 10% giving a false sense of
reduced rate. A
friend of mine, who ran a shop, once told me that they would write codes
representing values at the base to know the price at which they would sell
! - now Supermarkets and all big shops
use the barcode which is scanned, read and price printed in the bill, which
people generally do not care to check !
A barcode is an optical machine-readable representation of data
relating to the object to which it is attached. Originally barcodes
systematically represented data by varying the widths and spacings of parallel
lines; later they evolved into rectangles, dots, hexagons and other geometric
patterns in two dimensions (2D). Their
simplicity, universality and low cost have ensured their success.
QR code (abbreviated from Quick Response Code) is the trademark
for a type of matrix barcode (or two-dimensional barcode) first designed for
the automotive industry in Japan. A QR code uses four standardized encoding
modes (numeric, alphanumeric, byte / binary, and kanji) to efficiently store
data; extensions may also be used. The QR Code system became popular outside
the automotive industry due to its fast readability and greater storage
capacity compared to standard UPC barcodes. Applications include product
tracking, item identification, time tracking, document management, and general
marketing. A QR code consists of black
modules (square dots) arranged in a square grid on a white background, which
can be read by an imaging device (such as a camera) and processed using Reed–Solomon
error correction until the image can be appropriately interpreted.
If
you ever thought such QR codes are restricted to supermarkets, you would be
surprised that about a couple of years back, even a dairy cow was spray-paitned
with QR code.
Perhaps the Friesian cow ‘Lady Shamrock’ was the first
one to have the code that could be scanned by phone, linked directly to a blog
of her daily routine. Lady Shamrock lives on the family-run farm where
she is looked after by farmers Jane and Mark Barnes. She worked with dairy
farmers’ organisation DairyCo to trial the code, which is believed to be the
first of its type. Lady Shamrock is
special producing about 30-40 litres of milk every day – she is not the lone
‘digital daisy’.
It
is claimed that the idea behind the digital bar-codes at Southfields farm in
Somerby, Leicestershire, is to give consumers more information about their
cows’ lives. Passers-by can scan the QR code using an app on a smartphone and
get quick access to a website which contains information about the farm’s
100-strong herd of dairy cows. Scanning
the cow with your smartphone will give you details of it's milking time,
favourite foods and how it is cared for by the farmers
Alongside Shamrock, the cows at the Southfields farm in Somerby,
Leicestershire have had a hi-tech makeover.
The QR Code is sprayed on them using
a special paint specially developed for animals,
and can be brushed off at the end of the day.
Mrs Barnes of Thisisdairyfarming.com stated: 'After we had applied the
code for the first time, Lady Shamrock went out into the field and the other
cows couldn’t quite believe what they were seeing - they all came up to her to
have a look and sniff.
We
drink billions of litres of milk every year in Britain but may not necessarily
reflect on all the work farmers do to make that happen.' The farm has tested their idea out on their
cows and scanners will direct to www.thisisdairyfarming.com to find out
more about the animals and other information.
With
regards – S. Sampathkumar
16th
Apr 2015
Photo
and news credit : www.dailymail.co.uk
