168 Years of Auto ID…

Posted on 11 October 2010

If you saw my last blog post you’d have read how good it was for me to see the technology I’ve been involved with for the last 25 years being used in the NHS today as part of their duty of care for my loved ones. Two dimensional PDF-417 and linear Code39 barcodes appearing on wristband labels detailing up to 2,000 characters of information on the patients wrist, helping protecting the patient from serious hazards of blood transfusion and incorrect drug doses.

Over the weekend I experienced the diversity of services offered by the NHS. In a ward on the third floor of one building, my 84 years old father is recovering from breaking his hip in a fall. On the first floor of a different building (same hospital) my daughter gave birth to her first child, a beautiful, 8lb 6oz baby boy. Within minutes of his birth, he acquired a very small wristband type label, fixed around his ankle with – you guessed it, a PDF-417 barcode.

Obviously these labels enable automatic identification (Auto ID), a machine-readable mechanism for storing information at the point of use. In other words the barcode is the envelope or carrier for, in this case, personal information that may be vital to healthcare practitioners at the bedside. In July 1936 when my father was born, the concept of computers, let alone their invention, was still 7 years away. It wasn’t until 1943 when both the ‘Harvard Mk I‘ was developed by Harvard University, backed by IBM, and Colossus was invented in the UK to decipher German codes.

If computers didn’t exist when my father was born, what will computing and, of more interest here, Auto ID look like when my grandson is 84? If you’ll humour me I’ll hazard a few guesses by first looking back at how computing has developed.

Initially, commercial computers used punched cards as the data entry device, punched by comptometer operators on separate devices, encoding binary information and ‘run’ in batches. Since then, keyboards have been the primary data entry mechanism and various studies over the years have shown an average error rate of 1 in 30 characters when manually typing information. Then in the early 1970s barcodes began to be used as a more accurate method for inputting key information like retail product codes. Accuracy of data entered increased to less than 1 error in 10 millions characters. More recently we’ve seen Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) tags being utilised to read from and write information to tags. By extension it seems reasonable to assume we’ll see wireless networks becoming ubiquitous with item tags embedded in almost everything we need to track, with the possible exception of people! These tags can be read at considerable distances (10 metres) and allow information to be written to them from transceivers embedded in the covering of walls of our buildings.

There will be a plethora of applications allowing everything from an automatic shopping list created as you use consumables, resulting in a weekly supplies delivery. The logistics of the supply chain will be significantly simplified through electronically sharing usage information, resulting in enhanced manufacturing and resource planning. Planning is possible now, but will be extended to include food production, growing cycles and every aspect of the supply chain. Waste bins will tell you which recycle bin to place the rubbish in and appliances will tell your home network when something is failing. Your personal communicator will provide all the digital assistance you need including being your wallet in what will be a cashless society. Auto ID will, by the year 2094, cease to be a separate arm of computing as it will be integral to computers. The spoken word will replace keyboards which will subsequently be viewed only in museums. Embedded motion sensors will translate hand movements into computer commands as a development of the way gestures are used on touch sensitive devices now.

Today my grandson starts a journey, although as you’ll see from this picture, he’s quite content to sleep. If technology changes as much as it has since my father’s birth, it will be a fascinating time. What do you think; will Auto ID remain an autonomous discipline of computing?