"Square on Tubes Mean Something for Consumer"

Verdict : 

Possible time of origin : March, 2013

Circulation platforms : Email, Facebook

Circulation geography : Worldwide

Original Message Version Under Analysis:

Pay attention when buying toothpaste, at the bottom of the toothpaste tube there is a color bar. And do you only know the original meaning of the color bar!
Try to choose green and blue, there are four kinds:
Green: natural;Blue : Natural + Medicine;Red : Natural + Chemical composition;Black : pure chemical.
please share to all......

Analysis by Merofact Awareness Team: This supposedly helpful message is actually based on fiction and not fact. The colored rectangles on or next to the crimp of soft toothpaste tubes are meant for processing machines to read and not of interest for the consumers. These colored rectangles are often used in the process of automated industrial packaging and quality control. They are often referred as "eye mark" or "color mark" and they aid in "Machine Vision" (MV). Wikipedia entry says "Machine vision (MV) is the technology and methods used to provide imaging-based automatic inspection and analysis for such applications as automatic inspection, process control, and robot guidance in industry." Invariably the process involves capturing a image, which is read and analyzed by an customized software system, that directs a robotic system to perform a desired job according the reading received. So these marks can be used either to direct the machine to seal the tube at or next to the Color Mark or can be used for quality control purposes, eg. to orient the filled and sealed tube properly for further inspection, reading of registration and labels etc. The used colors and sizes of this eye mark depends on the camera (sensor) and software being used in the packaging process, which vary widely. At the end these marks remains on the tube as a secondary effect of the packaging and quality control processes but doesn't tell consumer anything about the tube content. If you really want to know what are the contents of the toothpaste you are about to buy/use, just have a look at the list of ingredients printed somewhere else on the tube. Watch the following short video to see how colors read by camera can be used to direct machines to sort them separately. A similar yet more complex proprietary process happen with toothpaste tubes we regularly use.