A few months ago, New York began offering “Enhanced Driver’s Licenses” (EDLs) that contain embedded RFID chips. The RFID chips can be scanned by border patrols in Canada, Mexico, and the Caribbean, allowing RFID chip license holders to travel passport free.

If you’re weary that having an RFID license means that you can be constantly tracked, put your worries to rest. Authorities assure that the RFID chip will not store or transmit any vital personal information, only an ID number.

To get an Enhanced New York license with an RFID chip, it only costs $30 more than the standard $50 licensing fee. When you consider the time, money, and trouble it takes to get a passport, the Enhanced Driver’s License is definitely worth it.

Lauren Miller, a New Yorker, stated, “When I needed to get a new license, I saw an option for the enhanced license and asked what it meant. After receiving an explanation, I thought the enhanced license would be an excellent option for me since I travel to Canada a lot for business. Not having to worry about my passport is definitely worth the extra $30.”

Currently, Enhanced Driver’s Licenses are only available in New York and Washington State, but other states will soon follow suit.

You may have noticed the RSS Feed icon in the upper right, but do you know what it can do for you?  You can quickly and easily subscribe to a feed and you’ll be aware of any updated content automatically.  If you’d like to stay up to date on my recent posts and have them appear right on your homepage you can take the following steps.  These directions are for adding the barcode.com RSS feed to a My Yahoo! homepage, however other portals have similar options.

Step 1: On your My Yahoo! homepage click Add Content 

Step 2: At the bottom of the Add Content box click Add RSS Feed

Step 3: Enter the barcode.com feed URL as seen below and click Add

Step 4: Click I’m Done

Now you can access barcode.com directly from your homepage and keep up to date on Auto ID and barcode news more easily.

As promised in my Question of the Week, I’m going to take a closer look at Code 39 today.  Once again, Code 39 is also known as barcode 39, code 3 of 9, 3 of 9 barcode and more.  Code 39 was created in 1975 by Intermec and is still widely used in industrial applications and for internal applications.

Code 39 is capable of encoding uppercase letters A-Z, digits 0-9 and special characters such as SPACE, - (minus), . (period), $ (dollar sign), % (percent), / (slash), + (plus).  An Extended Code 39 can also encode additional characters not normally supported by the code, such as lower case letters.  This low density symbol requires more space to encode data than the similar Code 128.  Also unlike Code 128, Code 39 doesn’t require a check digit because it was designed with character self-checking.  Yet Code 39 does have a checksum character for standards that may require it, such as LOGMARS (Logistics Applications of Automated Marking and Reading Symbols).  When required, the checksum is calculated using a Modulo 43 calculation and the code is referred to as Code 39 mod 43.

Each Code 39 character is made up of 9 elements, 3 wide and 6 narrow.  Therefore, a single character consists of 5 black bars and 4 white spaces.  Each symbol includes:

1. Quiet zone the width of at least 10 narrow bars

2. Start character

3. Encoded data

4. Stop character

5. Quiet zone the width of at least 10 narrow bars

Code 39 can be read by nearly every barcode scanner on the market today and is quite popular because of its simplicity and reliable reading results.  If you would like more information about barcode software that supports Code 39 or have any additional questions, please feel free to contact me at ehodges@barcode.com.

As promised in my recent Question of the Week, I’m going to take a closer look at SCC-14, known globally as EAN/UCC-14.  This symbology is also known as Shipping Container Code because it is used for fixed-content shipping containers.  This 14-digit symbology has two different representations, UCC/EAN 128 format or the ITF-14 format which is based on Interleaved 2 of 5.  The most widely used barcode representation is the UCC/EAN 128 with Application Identifier (AI) 01 pictured above.  SCC-14 consists of 14 digits, including a check digit that is calculated the same way as a UPC/EAN check digit.  A SCC-14 barcode consists of the following pieces of data:

• Digit 1- Package Indicator (PI)
• Digits 2-3- UPC numbering system/EAN country prefix
• Digits 4-8- Manufacturer code
• Digits 9-13- Item identification number
• Digit 14- Check digit

Because SCC-14 is used for marking and labeling containers that hold products marked with UPC-A or EAN-13 barcodes, these codes are included in the SCC-14 code.  The digits from position 2-13 are the UPC-A or EAN-13 code that is encoded on the products within the case.

The packaging indicator is determined by what is in the container.  A PI of 0 is used to indicate a container that doesn’t have similar items or items without the same UPC or EAN.  PI’s of 1-8 differentiate between cases with different quantities of the same item.  And a PI of 9 indicates that the number of items in each case varies and isn’t fixed.

Unlike a UPC or EAN, you don’t have to register for an SCC-14 number.  It can be produced following the rules above and created with barcode label software.  If you need more information about software that supports this code, please contact me at ehodges@barcode.com.

I‘ve had several questions recently about retail barcode standards in Europe and I thought it might help to take a closer look at EAN-13.  EAN (European Article Number) has always been the symbology of choice throughout Europe and recently has spread to the U.S. and Canada.  Prior to 2005, any products sold internationally required both a UPC and an EAN barcode, but now EAN-13 is seen worldwide.  EAN-13 is much like the UPC-A code widely used throughout the U.S., with a few small differences.  EAN-13 uses a numbering system (00-99) to include country information, whereas the numbering system for a UPC-A ranges from 0-9.   And of course, EAN-13 has 13 digits compared to the standard 12 digit UPC.  There is also a shorter version of EAN-13 for small packages, known as EAN-8.   A standard EAN-13 includes the following items:

• Country Code or System Code- the first 2 digits of the barcode that represent the country that the manufacturer is registered in, not necessarily the country of origin.
• Manufacturer Code- This is the unique five digit code assigned to a manufacturer by the EAN numbering authority. This is like the unique prefix manufacturers are assigned when they register with GS1 for a UPC.
• Product Code- The product code is the 5 digits that follow the manufacturer code. These are assigned by the manufacturer to represent that specific product.
• Check Digit or Checksum- The check digit is the last digit of the barcode, used to verify that the barcode scans correctly. EAN-13 uses a modulo 10 calculation for the checksum, but if you don’t feel like doing the math, this simple EAN-13 Check Digit Calculator takes out all the hard work.

For more information about EAN-13 or barcode label software that supports it, please contact me at ehodges@barcode.com.