Stefan Mileschin

In a worldwide push called "Sunrise 2027," the retail industry is transitioning from the standard 12-digit barcode -- that square of vertical lines that's printed on a package and makes it go "beep" at the checkout scanner -- to a two-dimensional web-enabled version. The effort is being orchestrated by GS1 US, the nonprofit standards organization that oversees the barcode world. In the United States, Universal Product Code (UPC) barcodes will be supplanted by a new 2D type, with information encoded on both the horizontal and vertical axes. By 2027, only the 2D barcodes will be accepted at registers globally.

https://fudzilla.com/news/56730-barcodes-get-an-update