You don't always know who will change the world!

From tampabay.com

Selector of bar code dies at 81
At 8:01 a.m. on June 26, 1974, a man in Ohio bought a package of chewing gum and the entire world changed. A 10-pack of Wrigley's Juicy Fruit gum slid down a conveyor belt and past an optical scanner. The scanner beeped, and the cash register understood, faithfully ringing up 67 cents. That purchase, at a Marsh Supermarket in Troy, Ohio, was the first to be rung up using a bar code. Trillions of beeps later, what was once a novel technology with uncertain prospects is so widespread as to be almost invisible. This transformation, industry experts say, is partly because of one person, a supermarket executive from Massachusetts named Alan L. Haberman, who died Sunday (June 12, 2011) from complications of heart and lung disease in Newton, Mass. He was 81. Mr. Haberman did not invent the universal product code, or UPC, as the bar code is known. But he led the committee that chose the bar code developed by IBM over other contenders — circles, bull's-eyes and an assortment of dots — in 1973.

Do you remember when you were first aware of bar codes? Can you imagine shopping without them today?