Science and technology will continue to develop. Nature and Business in 2023 have made their predictions. Let’s have a look.

Beep! Beep! Barcode(条形码) technology makes it faster and easier to buy things in shops. Today, barcodes are scanned(扫描) over 6 billion times every day and used by more than 2 million companies all over the world.

It has been a great invention(发明). In 1971, IBM engineer George Laurer invented a code which could be printed on food labels(标签). He is also known as the father of the Universal Product Code(通用的产品代码) which has been used by many food companies since 1973.

There is lots of information in a barcode, such as what the product is, when and where the product is made, the price and so on. Because of this, barcodes can also help shopkeepers keep track of their products (产品跟踪). For example, if there are 10 cartons of milk in stock(库存) and a consumer (消费者) buys one, it will be recorded so that the shopkeeper knows there are nine left. In the 1980s, libraries started using barcodes to keep track of books in this way as well. “This invention made the first digitization(数字化) in the control of the stock come true.” José María Bonmatí from AECOC said.

The next generation(代) of barcodes, such as QR codes(二维码), can hold more information. They can tell consumers if a product has any allergens(过敏原) or if it is organic(有机的). This can help consumers pick up what they will buy easily.

Public toilets are known for a number of things, and they’re almost all bad — dark, dirty, smelly, scary, and depending on where they’re located, crowded. There’s nothing worse than needing to use the restroom only to catch sight of a public toilet and then walk up to see that it’s occupied （占用）. However, the first transparent （透明的）public toilets in Tokyo arc way cooler than you can imagine.

Designed by Shigeru Ban Architects, a Pritzker Prize-winning architecture company, the two new sets of transparent toilets have been built in two Shibuya parks in Tokyo. The toilets are lined with transparent glass. When not in use, the three stylish units are almost completely see-through, with purple glass for men and pink for women, as well as a yellow unit for changing babies. The real trick, however, comes when you enter and lock the doors.

Nobody wants to have people watching them while they’re doing their business. When you lock the doors, the glass panels turn opaque to provide privacy. When the door is unlocked, the glass becomes transparent once again.

"This allows users to check the cleanliness and whether anyone is using the toilet from the outside", says a statement on the project’s official website, Tokyotoilet. jp. "At night, the toilets lights up the park like a beautiful lantern. "

It remains to be seen whether people in Tokyo will decide that these new and improved restrooms are worthy of use, but I can’t imagine why anyone wouldn’t want to spend some time in them.