People will have to upgrade by the deadline. This is not unheard of (2004): > Recently the Uniform Code Council (the organization that governs UPC bar codes) a

People will have to upgrade by the deadline. This is not unheard of (2004): > Recently the Uniform Code Council (the organization that governs UPC bar codes) announced that starting in January 2005, they will require that all retailers and trading partners in the United States and Canada that presently scan 12-digit UPC bar code symbols be capable of scanning 8 digit EAN-8 and 13 digit EAN-13 bar code symbols as well. Furthermore, the UCC strongly recommends enhancing systems to accept bar code data of up to 14 digits in preparation for a new numbering system called GTIN (Global Trade Identification Numbers) that will eventually be used to identify products world wide. * https://www.taltech.com/blog/post/changes_in_the_upc_code https://www.taltech.com/blog/post/changes_in_the_upc_code * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_Product_Code https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_Product_Code * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_Trade_Item_Number https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_Trade_Item_Number Sidenote: it would be interesting to see what would need to be done to expand the allowed telephone number length: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E.164 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E.164