A barcode is a readable piece of data attached to an article in the form of an adhesive label to give an item a value, in currency or other data, it has to be machine-readable data so as it can be scanned or read by a computer based piece of equipment. Barcodes were originally developed to be read by barcode readers and optical scanners, but today they can be used in other applications such as smartphone’s and desktop printers. When first developed they were represented by a series of linear parallel lines, but nowadays they have evolved into hexagons, dots and rectangles. They were first used in the transport industry namely on railway carriages, but later came to be used in supermarkets on the checkout to price purchased items, now their uses are more widespread. It is thought that this kind of pricing system is beneficial to the retail industry, giving up to date detailed information of items that are selling particularly well, and also items that aren’t, also prices can be changed on the shelf just by the push of a button. The first known item to be scanned in a supermarket was a packet of Wrigley’s chewing gum.