Somiatruites, Ciberderechos en la Red

Mirar a las tecnologías pasadas puede ser muy interesante para ser mesurados en nuestros juicios sobre las tecnologías futuras. En The New York Times hacen un repaso a los 30 años desde que código de barras comenzóa a usarse, Bar Code Détente: U.S. Finally Adds One More Digit. Estos párrafos dan que pensar:

The successful spread of the bar code may seem inevitable, but only in retrospect. Even after its commercial introduction on June 26, 1974, when a pack of Wrigley's Juicy Fruit gum was scanned at a grocery store in Ohio, there were rocky years.

Consumer groups protested the bar code, saying that shoppers would be cheated if price tags were not on each item. Labor unions decried the possibility of job losses from the labor-saving technology. There were environmental worries that the laser scanners in the bar-code readers might damage people's eyes.

By 1976, the initial wave of enthusiasm had faded when BusinessWeek magazine ran an article headlined, "The Supermarket Scanner That Failed." Predictions that 1,000 or more grocery stores would have installed bar-code scanning systems by 1976 proved wildly optimistic. Only about 50 stores in the United States had them, BusinessWeek reported, and bar-code equipment makers, including RCA, Pitney-Bowes, Singer and Bunker Ramo, had fled the field.

Si admiro la prensa anglosajona es porque se permiten el lujo de escribir sobre un asunto tan poco noticioso como el 30 aniversario del código de barras y hacerlo de forma que resulte un placer leerlo.