The Beaglebone was paired with a USB camera to read Barcodes and QR-Codes as part of an off-the-work project by a small team of engineers.
See http://processors.wiki.ti.com/index.php/Barcode_and_QR_Code_with_Beaglebone for more details, including steps to:
a) Quick Demo at your desk
b) Building the Demo from scratch