RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — Norman Joseph Woodland, the co-inventor of the bar code that labels nearly every product in stores and has boosted productivity in nearly every sector of commerce worldwide, has died. He was 91.
Woodland died Sunday in Edgewater, N.J., from the effects of Alzheimer’s disease and complications of his advanced age, his daughter, Susan Woodland of New York, said Thursday.
Woodland and Bernard Silver were students at what is now called Drexel University in Philadelphia when Silver overheard a grocery store executive asking an engineering school dean to channel students into research on how product information could be captured at checkout, Susan Woodland said.
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