Two-dimensional barcodes

Look at the label on the last package you received from UPS, or at the back of your driver’s license. Chances are there’s a rectangular area on there containing tiny rectangles, circles, hexagons, or similar patterns. You’re looking at a two-dimensional barcode, which can store several kilobytes of data as compared to the roughly twelve bytes in the UPC barcode on that bottle of lotion you keep by the bed. Daniel sent me a story at the New York Times about a club in Boston that is pulling and storing the name, age, height, home address, and other specifics of its patrons. So I want to know just what is on the back of my own license. Here is a document that gives a brief introduction to the roughly twenty different types of 2D barcodes in common use today. Read more for further stuff as I find it.

The barcodes in use on Georgia driver’s licenses appear to be encoded in the PDF417 symbology, which was invented by some Wang guy at Symbol Technologies and is now in the public domain. Symbol has a marketing-heavy <a href=“symbol.com href=“http://www.symbol.com/products/barcode_scanners/2dproductspdf417_technolog.html”>document on PDF417.