Bars, numbers, and maxis

The May 19 issue of Fortune, in an article entitled "Scanning the Globe," recounts the history of the development and adoption of bar codes and the Universal Product Code. This is a wonderful article. Although intended for use in automated supermarket check-out systems, bar-code systems were first adopted for use in manufacturing and distribution, to track inventory and parts. In the magazine itself, there's a depiction of a UPS or FedEx shipping label. Now at last it's revealed to the ignorant what to call that wormy, splotchy area with the bull's-eye in the middle that appears on all sorts of mailing labels: MaxiCode.