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Free Barcode Reader From Radio Shack
Skyhawk128 writes: "I was in my local Radio Shack yesterday, and as I was checking out, the manager offered me a free barcode scanner to use with their new catalog. By hooking up the scanner to your PS2 keyboard port and installing their software (Windows only) you can scan the bar codes found on most pages and be taken a web page with expanded information about that product. They claim to be able to scan the bar code on all sorts of things (i.e.- UPC codes on food, etc.) I have been too busy playing with the scanner in Notepad to install the software, but I thought this gadget might be of interest to other geeks." Several folks have confirmed that you can get a free barcode reader if you're into it. P'raps a SANE module shall soon follow? [Note from timothy:] Not all RS locations are giving them out yet -- the nearest one to me, despite telling me otherwise on the phone, refused to give me one until they had the new (bar-coded) catalogs in stock. That's at Chatham Station shopping center in Howard County, MD.
A product that's can tell me more about RS merchandise then most Radio Shack employees!!!
"But sir, there's no such thing as a 'cpu fan'." (From 1998)
"Why does your motherboard need a battery? You plug it in to the wall... What do you mean by 'CMOS'?"
"Can of worms? The can is open... the worms are everywhere."
A really good friend of mine would put barcodes on all of his floppies. Then had a Turbo Pascal program (this was a while ago mind you, back when we used floppies). He could just click on a floppy and a norton-command looking dialog would pop up and show him what was currently on the disk, according to the database. Then he just updated the database before removing the disk. It sure beats rewriting labels a dozen times on floppies you reuse frequently.
Personally I would put them on all my items, then click on them when I loaned them to friends. Except to see a loan database for GTK+ when I get one of these. Also putting them on my many systems and all the hdds, pci cards, etc. would make keeping track of my hardware and where it is a bit easier.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
Yeppers, folks, it's a serial number. We've got two that we're making comparisons of.
...
Code39 1 23 1 23 1 23
.ahb6. C3nZ CNjY CxfX. #000 111 222
.ahb6. ChbW D3D3 DNz2. #333 444 555
.ahb6. Dxv1 Dhr0 E3T7. #666 777 888
.ahb6. ENP6 #999
.ahb6. aGic aqeb aaaa. #aaa bbb ccc
.ahb6. bWCh bGyg bquf. #ddd eee fff
.ahb6. baqe cWSl cGOk. #ggg hhh iii
.ahb6. cqKj caGi dW8p. #jjj kkk lll
.ahb6. dG4o dq0n daWm. #mmm nnn ooo
.ahb6. eXmt eHis erer. #ppp qqq rrr
.ahb6. ebaq fXCx fHyw. #sss ttt uuu
.ahb6. fruv fbqu gXSB. #vvv www xxx
.ahb6. gHOA grKz z2DN. #yyy zzz $$$
.ahb6. BgXS y2nJ zMzM. #/// %%%
.ahb6. AgHO BM5U Bw1T. #+++ ---
SNs:
.C3 n Z C3 n Z C3 n X E3 n Z E3 n Y CN n X
0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 2 8 0 0 8 0 1 1 0 2
.C3 n Z C3 n Z C3 n X E3 n Z Dh D 0 CN n X
0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 2 8 0 0 7 4 7 1 0 2
.ahb6.bWChbGygbquf.
.ahb6 Code 39 ?39
.aaer Codabar CRR
.CNf7 Code128 128
.fHmc UPC-A UPA
.fGj2 UPC-A(5) ?15
.fGjX UPC-A(2) ?12
.fHmg UPC-E UPE
.fGz2 UPC-E(5) ?55
.fGzX UPC-E(2) ?52
.bNjW EAN/JAN13 ?13
.bNb2 EAN/JAN13(5) ?35
.bNbX EAN/JAN13(2) ?32
Note that it does Code128, so it does handle the
complete ASCII character set, we believe. The question marks above are probably lower-case letters.
Okay, so who is going to be the first person to post a scannable image of the DeCSS code in barcode?
(Didn't DDJ or one of the other early computer magazines try running a few issues with progam source (or was it binary?) printed in some sort of barcode, many years back?)
-- Alastair
Last year, a team, including myself, integrated scanners using these drivers running on Java/Linux.
The article says that the software is for Windows-only (most likely OPOS), but with these Java-based JPOS drivers, the cuecat can be ported quickly to Linux.
From the web site:
:CueCat technology allows for special incentives to be offered based on demographics. The more information you provide, the greater the rewards. Tell us what you like, and we'll give you what you want.
-=-=-
-=-=-
More Info for better targeted marketing! No thanks!
TAG - Your it!
Actually, I believe the tattoed serial number was the least of the holocaust victim's problems. So what if someone thinks a barcode is a cool tattoo? It is not as if they are forced to work until their death...
If I got a treat for holding the magazine up, or scanning the barcode in, the company would certainly have one foot in the door as far as attracting my attention.
I'm thinking Pavlov(sp?) and the canine here.
-- Spammers: My E-mail server is in California. Consider yourself warned.
I threw together a little quick and dirty script to decode the scanner output. But while I was doing it I noticed that the scanner sends back three things: the barcode, a code type (i.e. UPC, ISBN, etc.), and a long number that's always the same. Is this some sort of ID or serial number? Does anyone else find that creepy?
Building Better Software
I have an idea for something more useless than the on-screen keyboards that you click with your mouse ..
A print out of UPC codes for a full qwerty keyboard. Simply plug up your amazing :Cue Cat and scan away! I gurantee at least a rate of 3 papercuts a minute! :)
---
Rob Flynn
---
Rob Flynn
Pidgin
Adds a whole new meaning to the term "CAT scan".
A mouse and a cat on my desk? What's next, a dog? (Oh, that's Windoze. Never mind.)
(I'm in a strange mood this morning...)
-- Alastair
There's an alternative over at http://www.qode.com/
It'd be cool if someone can reverse-engineer the CueCAT for normal barcode scanning...
If the CueCAT is a standard wedge barcode decoder, I'm sure someone can hack their way around the software to extract the desired barcode data...
OTOH, if the "wedge" only captures the raw barcode bitmap, and requires the "CueCAT driver" to decode the barcode, someone has to write a barcode decoding algorithm...
FWIW, I wrote a Code 39 and Interleaved 2 of 5 decoder in college... It does NOT decode UPC's, though. If you're interested, you can get it here.
The source-code zip-file has a password: "timeline". The password is there because I normally release it as "postcard-ware"... (A little obnoxious, I know, but I've gathered some beautiful postcards from all over the world for this... And, really, anyone could have asked me to e-mail them the password, and I would.)
Please be gentle! It's old sleepless-newbie-student C code, but it did work. If someone can spend time to port it to Windows and the CueCAT, that'll be really cool... I don't have the time right now. :-(
CS2000 has a documented SDK. We have developed a java software to interface the device to any web site (via HTTP). Overall the interface to such devices is pretty simple. Unfortunately these devices connect to the computer via the COM port, which limits the use (pc only) and requires the device to be tethered to a computer.
The device is also useless without a serious database of codes (UPC or other in the case of cuecat) since the device can only return the information that it has read (ie. the bar code numbers). Checkout barpoint for what they claim is a database of 100 million UPC.
-- Farid Mheir
See, this is funny. Why don't you moderate it up? I would if it were me. oy vey.
----------
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"Rock over London... Rock on Chicago..." -Wesley Willis
...will not sleep tonight...
"..don't you eat that yellow snow."
I work at an Ice Skating Rink and I am one of the DJ's there. My friend (Also a DJ) and I have been considering this idea ever since I saw that ad in Wired 8.09 (pg 129). If we could have a list of songs that have barcodes on them, we could just have the :CueCat sitting next to it and people could just scan their requests. The MP3's would be either named the acutal code that the :CueCat spits out or just the decoded UPC's. Winamp would read them in and then automagically add them to the playlist. But I have two questions,
1: Can the :CueCat read any text in a barcode?
2: Are there any other (read: better) ways to do this?
Also, has anyone had any luck with stores in the Escondido, CA area. We have 4 Radio Shacks but I have only gone to one any they didn't mention the cat.
According to their stock statement, they plan on distributing about 50 million units by '01.
Radio Shack is doing this for the coolness factor this brings to them.
- Split blocks on the dots
- Do a 4->3 binhex-like decoding with the table [a..z][A..Z][0..9][+-]. Drop any incomplete byte
- Xor each value with 67
- Print as ascii
The first block is some kind of serial number, the second the type of barcode (UPA, C39, 128...), the third the barcode itself.
OG.
I live in Europe but by my calculations it should be August 24th by now (see timestamp above) even if the "International Dateline"(TM) has rolled over a couple of longitudes (or should that be lattitudes? I forget)
---
Free ?! Does that mean I can't get a Discount ?!
This message was
Wired magazine said that every subscriber would be getting one in their October issue. It's the exact same thing, too. A lot of the new Wired ads will have those little barcodes so when you swipe them, your browser will open to the site of the advertiser. I don't quite know what good that will do... I'll already have the ad.
My social studies (PC way of saying history) teacher from 8th grade has the barcode/upc for poptarts tattooed on his forearm. All the had to do was walt up to a barcode scanner, swipe hsi arm over it, and poptarts rung up.
Mark Duell
I haven't gotten my development machine close to where the cat is still sitting in its bag, but here's how I'm planning to tackle this in Windoze:
SetWindowsHookEx allows a procedure to snag the message queue. Setting the first parameter to WH_KEYBOARD lets you grab keyboard messages.
The Keyboard Hook routine, KeyboardProc, gets the virtual-key code, the scan code -- which is OEM dependent, a code indicating it's not on the main keyboard, and some other useless flags.
Once I know what the scan code is, and what v-key codes are used for their 'fake' barcode values, it should be possible to
(a) swallow the serial number
(b) keep the context of first, second, third digit
(c) translate the code type (optional?)
(d) translate to the real barcode value
Dunno if this works under NT/2000, and likely things are different under various Unices.
Joel
From The Radio Shack website: "Simply use :CueCat to swipe a product code in advertising or catalogs, and :CueCat will link you instantly to a relevant Web page data at RadioShack.com."
Ok, this is admittedly kinda cool. However, a problem will possibly arise if any other companies want to implement a similar interactive catalog.
Scenario:
Radio Shack patents :CueCat. Other catalog companies start using similar technology. Radio Shack sues. Say hello to legal brouhaha!
I wonder if they're planning to let other businesses get in on this in the long run.
I am thinking why couldnt this be used for exclusive or underground clubs. My bet is maybe there already are some out there. Imagine standing in line to have your arm scanned. Why stop there why cant i have my credit card information on a tatoo on my arm? Feel free to contact me directly. jtwomley@andrews.edu P.S. anyone know of any other free hardware. Anyone usesing I paq wirlessley?
www.nettalklive.com
:)
It's the TV show which has been using the ":C" for about a year or more now.
I know I'll look at the back of each of my high-tech gadgets and do a quick inventory! Maybe I'll even write a simple program that stores these in some convenient manner.
However, I'd say a really cool, simple to apply use for these could be to Palms. They have a lot of application there, being portable and wireless. Perhaps I'll write this program of mine on the PalmOS.
Anyone in? =P
I would actually describe yourself as a whiny bitch..
Business promotions on brick&mortar stores (to use the current buzzword) are af course dependent on the store, but on the Internet, a company would be really stupid (<flamebait>or actually, as introvert as an American company usually is</flamebait>) not to include clients from all around the world. After all, that's what the Internet is for...
And no, I'm not the poster of the grandparent message.
As a general tip, it is unwise to strip powered cables using one's teeth.
A typical bar code reader functions exactly like you say. *UNFORTIONATLY*, they decided that want to play games with it. It selectivly garbles the data, and you *MUST* use it on a Windows system using a custom keyboard 'driver'.
-- I'm the root of all that's evil, but you can call me cookie..
Incorrect in this case. The driver is required becouse it does a selective garbling of the data.
-- I'm the root of all that's evil, but you can call me cookie..
A few of us got it at work. Scanning in the same UPC with two different CATs, shows that the first number is a unique identifier. Same on every scan, but different for every CAT. If Radio Shack is taking down names and addresses (as they always do on every purchase) and scanning in the bar code of the CAT, then they are obviously tracking you.
Using it for the catalogs, and taking you to their website with their software is actually an awesome idea, and I think it will help them. I just am a bit queezy when they start tracking you too.
----------------
Have you read my journal today?
I love the new sexy USB/firewire/bwafoodle busses, but I miss being able to wire together some logic straight off my parallel port, and have it do crazy shit no one else was using a computer to do. Like set off fireworks. Damn. I'm 'a' 'splode you!
I have a positive modifier on Troll. When I mod someone Troll their karma should go UP!
I just called a local Radio Shack (in Waterloo, Ontario), and they didn't know what I was talking about. Sounds like this is just for the Unitedstatesians, at least for now.
Bitchslapped. Neat.
try http://sourceforge.net/projects/uscan/.
-- Slef
Two friends of mine and I agreed to tattoo our Social Security numbers onto the backs of our necks as soon as cheap hand-held scanning technology became available. We're one step closer now. Woo hoo!
I noticed that it's 'convergence cable' has a passthrough.. am I the only one that thinks EVEYRTHING that can hook up to a TV needs one of these? I'm tired of having to switch my cables on the back ofit...
----
Oh my god, Bear is driving! How can this be?
ADVENTURERS! - ANTIHERO FOR HIRE - CARDMASTER CONFLICT
And catalogs everywhere cry out in anguish at the loss of privacy and anonymity that slashdot has perpetrated by posting this article.
Popular Science magazine has been doing this too except without a barcode reader..
Most laptops have a PS/2 port that works at the same time as the keyboard.
Stuff like Palm would need an adapter, but I do remember seeing a PS/2 keyboard adaptor for the Palm.
Has anyone ever saw the tv :C yet? What channel? What commercial? Is there any particular network that's following this and using it for 'visit our website for more info' thingies?
----
Oh my god, Bear is driving! How can this be?
ADVENTURERS! - ANTIHERO FOR HIRE - CARDMASTER CONFLICT
Do you subscribe to Wired magazine? There's a full-page ad in the current issue that says they'll be mailing these Cue:Cat (whatever) scanners out in November. Since that's when the USB model comes out, I'll bet that all Wired subscribers will get a free USB one in the mail then.
My first thought was the same as everyone else's: Cool, free hardware! Let's hack it!
Ped Xing
Digimarc check it out
Spoon not. Fork, or fork not. There is no spoon.
The fun doesn't stop! You can barcode anything. I plan to tattoo barcodes onto my pets.
... I visited my local vet and he agrees with me that I could get my pets de-legged to make tattooing easier--after all, prone animals are easier to tattoo. Once this operation was performed, I managed to barcode all my pets! Now I have a house full of shaved, legless animals with barcodes on their heads which may be scanned so i can link to websites displaying pictures of their appearance before their "modifications" ...
;-)
I had some difficulty doing this to my cat, as I had to completely shave him down for the tattoo to go on easily. He didnt seem too happy about this and put up somewhat of a fight.
But, there's a solution
Cool eh ? !!!!
Back to our Library Discussion, wouldn't one of these babies work great for keeping track of those books!
Wired Magazine is also advertising a way to get the same Cue Cat devices for use with their advertising. What other handy uses might these be put to? When I read the article in Wired, I assumed it was proprietary, but from the sounds of it, they might not be.
Am I the only person here who would probably just type the damn URL in, rather than go to the trouble of picking up the thing and scanning the page?
Hmmm, lemme think for a minute. Type a long URL to a specific resource, or scan a barcode with a pen-like apparatus sitting at my computer? Gee, I dunno!?
Also, how common is it to read magazines while conveniently next to your computer? I almost never do. That's what the toilet is for, and I'm afraid I don't have a terminal there yet. Am I missing something?
A brain, maybe?
How exactly were you planning to visit the URL if you are not next to your computer? And if you are not planning to visit the URL, what the hell are you complaining about?
Have people been demanding this capability?
Has that ever been a pre-requisite for creating a new piece of hardware or software?
The idea is, articles can now reference documents exactly, with long-ass URL's, and their users can just scan the barcodes in to go right to it, instead of having to type them. Hell, Digimarc uses your webcam to view the magazine ad (if known), and redirects you to the place. I personally find the scanner idea easier to use right now.
The point is, not everyone's a 90-word a minute geek like yourself.
-thomas
"And like that
Long after I've gone to bed the bar code scanner and the mouse will engage in the eternal predator-prey stuggle, running around my shark fin shaped cable modem until they've both tied themselves up with their own cables. I'll wake up and groggily ask my roommates, "Okay who's been fucking with the computer?"
for privacy reasons, it's potentially more dangerous, since I don't really think Hostess Cakes needs to know that I saw their ad in Cosmo.
You're right! Just think of what they could do with such private information!
Horrors!!
-thomas
"And like that
There is actually a picture of the "CAT" at radioshack.com
Sadly enough, people will gladly give up even more of their privacy to play with the little gizmo.
bah.
The point is, as I understand it, is that SANE is probably an overkill; just make a program that reads stdin and prints the info out, assuming the software can be easily reverse-engineered. .doc (well, not that bad)
Why would someone go to such length to encode a barcode scanner data stream anyway? It sounds like it's trying to be incompatible with everything, like
# debian/rules
Music clips from McD's
... the age of truly disposable tech. And I thought that began with non-repairable electronics, how wrong I was.
Free barcode from RS
Well, I'll be
Now, to just find the shop that gives away free cellular modems... I'm sure they're around here somewhere...
Vote Naked 2000
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Pardon my negativity, but this thing strikes me as a supremely idiotic piece of hardware (at least for its intended purpose). I have to plug yet another piece of crap into my machine and, while conveniently sitting by my computer, read dead-tree periodicals and scan the codes in when I see something I like? Am I the only person here who would probably just type the damn URL in, rather than go to the trouble of picking up the thing and scanning the page? Also, how common is it to read magazines while conveniently next to your computer? I almost never do. That's what the toilet is for, and I'm afraid I don't have a terminal there yet. Am I missing something? Have people been demanding this capability? Has the lack of a magazine-computer interface been holding up the adoption of internet technology and impeding the advance of the new economy? This sounds to me like a pure marketdroid invention. No useful purpose, but at least you can slap a brand on it.
-Vercingetorix
-Vercingetorix
"Necessitas non habet legem." -St. Augustine
I work for RadioShack.
The official word to the stores was 'start giving them out as soon as you get the new catalogs.'
Of course the idea is to get you to come into the store and buy something while you're there.
The current version works with the ps2 keyboard port. (If you have an AT style keyboard you need an adaptor. A USB version is planned for novemeber.) RadioShack made a deal with a company called DigitalConvergence, the makers of the "Cue Cat". The ":" is their idea.
You don't have to go to a Radio Shack store - in two days you can order one online.
http://www.cuecat.com/getcat_form.html
It's usually a waste of time going in there, even if everything was free.
Look at the timestamp:
Still not available!
Can you say "look at the clock" ?
---
Free ?! Does that mean I can't get a Discount ?!
This message was
This would be The Matrix, according to The Internet UPC Database.
Do I get a prize?
This signature carefully hand-crafted from recycled electrons.
you'd better ask my pets ... they've felt a bit strange also since I shaved, de-legged, and tattoed them with barcodes on their heads (see similar postings in this forum)...
... but then again ... maybe not
Maybe its something to do with that number
:-)
Shut the fuck up and go express your teenage anger on furry animals or something. Jesus, some of these anon cowards just think it gives em a license to be a stupid lame bitch..
that would be the Matrix DVD and when I worked for DigitalConvergence.Com I did the demos for CueCat and CRQ. I had that DVD pointing to the following URL: http://us.imdb.com/Title?0133093 Any chance that it is still pointing there? Probably not. Ed
well, i made a program! here it is...carp3.zip its in early beta, and only works with windows (yuck) sorry! it works great though. if anyone wants to help with coding this in c (i did it in visual basic) so it can be ported, email me (crazyphreak@itookmyprozac.com)
Take the phrase Am I the only person here who would probably just type the damn URL in, rather than go to the trouble of picking up the thing and scanning the page? This sounds like you would see an item, walk over to the computer and type in 15-25 characters, with the magazine/catalog in hand. Well, if the magazine/catalog is there, and the computer is there, why wouldn't you scan the barcode?
You also raise the question how common is it to read magazines while conveniently next to your computer? It's not that you need to read the print catalog while at your computer, it is that you can place orders without having to type in all those silly part numbers.
I think the Radio Shack promotion, while it may ultimately fail, will be successful in that it will get technical folks back in to Radio Shack to get the cool toy (the five cell D-battery flashlight has morphed into the new barcode scanner)!
This play gets Radio Shack back in the mindset of their target market - the folks that influence non-technical user's purchases.
Ken
Actually that gives me a idea... why not set up a terminal in your bathroom (waterproof of course) so you can browse the web or send email to your friends/family while your doing the more mundane things of life like using the toilet or relaxing in your tub...
Only problem is someone already thought of it, it's called a webpad, and will be out soon.
-thomas
"And like that
Print out a template containing common commands needed to run a Q3 game and then just scan them in instead of using a keyboard. You could create bar codes for login, game launch, map changes, frag limits, et cetera.
If I need to do anything more complex than that, I could just telnet in. Otherwise, it's a nice bit of cool factor.
My other first post is car post.
...they aren't embedding the URLs in the barcode... they are linking the bar code readout (a serial number) to the URL on the CUeCat server. This is the same way the Digimarc technology works.
ok. even still, they could possibly contain enough data to refer to an index into a URL table and another number which could mean anything to the advertisor...
I just went to RS and got a couple at noon. They're very light and almost insubstantial. I'm going to take one apart tonight, but my guess is that they used some proprietary hardware and firmware for the scanning. All it takes is a PIC, an LED, a photo transistor and some firmware, for a basic barcode reader. It only decodes a couple of code types anyway, so the firmware can be relatively simple. The whole reader probably costs $3 or less to manufacture, so I doubt they used off the shelf barcoding chipsets.
Uwe Wolfgang Radu
Sorry for shouting, but the technology can be used for anything, including long-ass URL's that go directly to a specific resource mentioned in an article or an ad.
-thomas
"And like that
I went to radio shack and bought three (2.95 for the catalog including scanner). Each of them seems to have an ID! Look at the scans!!
.
.ahb6.eaya. is always the same. It seems to represent the product. But the .C3nZC3nZC3nYDN******CxnX. is different each time!!
Here are scans of three different products using the same scanner:
.C3nZC3nZC3nYDNn6ENr1CxnX.fHmc.C3DZCxPWCNz2DNv7
.C3nZC3nZC3nYDNn6ENr1CxnX.aabI.y2nIy2z7.
.C3nZC3nZC3nYDNn6ENr1CxnX.bNn7.C3f6Chj2DNy.
Here are three scans of the same product using three different scanners:
.C3nZC3nZC3nYDNn6ENr1CxnX.ahb6.eaya.
.C3nZC3nZC3nYDNf2CxrXCxnX.ahb6.eaya.
.C3nZC3nZC3nYDNj1C3b7CxnX.ahb6.eaya.
Note the
They might use the indiviual ids to track them! It's like a mac address or something.
Also, I took it apart. It contains what seems to be an industry standard red-led bar code scanner module. It connects to a pcboard with lots of little surface mount stuff thats over my head.
Anyhow, lets crack this thing!!
great idea: i'm in too. :-)
Malike Bamiyi wanted my assistance.
Fellow Slashdotter Doodman and I figured out a neat trick you can do with this thing - use it and a convenient barcode (maybe one you have dangling from your keyring for a video store etc.) to generate a physical access password. Since the device sends a unique ID as the first part of it's string, the password would require access to both that "random" barcode and your individual :CueCat.
Unfortunately, all the uses you mention imply a back-end database somewhere. The UPC code (and most other barcodes) only gives you a numeric key. If you have an inventory database, for example, you can use this key to look up the price or other details about the item. Without the database, a barcode is just a meaningless string of digits.
I have access to barcode scanners at work, including a Symbol SPT-1740 PalmOS/scanner combo. To this date I've never found anything "interesting" to scan. The best was the 2D (PDF417) barcode on the back of my driver's license. And, just as the State of Illinois claimed, the data contained within is encrypted. (No, I never tried to crack it.) Yippee.
Maybe now that the RS catalogs are coded I'll actually have a use for the SPT-1740.
Chelloveck
I give up on debugging. From now on, SIGSEGV is a feature.
I bit the bullet and asked them to send the ordering info to my hotmail. If I get any info I'll post it.
The standard software is always going to be the software that the sly people selling the barcode reader stick on the CD which ships with it. Those people are going to be the same people who want to do the advertising, and they are always going to try and stick on their own cheesy, smiley software.
--- You are a Target Market
Malike Bamiyi wanted my assistance.
Or are the drivers for this thing the perfect (purrrfect?) sort of software to open-source. Radio Shack derives no revenue from keeping the software secret, and will only gain from having more people use their little device. They are giving away the hardware for free ($), why not free (liberty) the software too?
Was in my local Shack today to buy tapes, and they didn't say a word about it... The new catalogs and of course the scanners aren't in all stores just yet. Looks like I'll make a return trip sometime soon. :)
Laughter is the Spackle of the Soul.
just my guess, anyways.
You can make your own barcodes online here.
10 LIST : REM MER : TSIL 01
I got a digital camera from Wired as part of the digimarc promotion. It did work, with a few caveats. For example, the camera had to be focused at a point about five inches away, which means if you're using it for videoconferencing, you'd probably have to re-focus it just to see the ad. Also, some ads worked better than others in terms of success ratio, but it really was cool to go to a URL just by holding a piece of paper in front of a camera. The hassel of getting to the point where you could hold the paper up (lanching the software, focusing the camera, adjusting white points, etc) didn't make it worth it beyond the first few ads. Notice now that there are almost no digimarc ads in Wired, at least in the latest issue.
The cat thing seems like an interesting idea, although I'm a bit upset that it seems to not be USB, and therefore probably not Mac-compatible, and so I'm out of luck (unless I got a USB adapter for it and used it on my iBook which has Linux installed...), although I'll take any free stuff Wired sends me.
Still, I can't see wholly what the point of it all is. First off, the new media-type companies that advertise in Wired tend to have company.com URLs anyway, and they're not that hard to type in. When I tried the digimark'd ads in Wired, I was hoping for some special payoff given the neat-o way that I got to the site, but I didn't. Both the advertisers and the magazine publishers need to figure out exactly *why* this would be useful, and exploit it. If I got a treat for holding the magazine up, or scanning the barcode in, the company would certainly have one foot in the door as far as attracting my attention.
The real possibilities come with blending the printed magazine with online content. If Wired stories began to have an online component that you could get to with the gizmo, whatever it was, then there's something truly useful there. And, it could provide a way of verifying that the person viewing the site is a purchaser of the magazine, so online content could be kept from jeopardizing newstand sales.
Really, when you think about it, if these URL-entering devices were around two years ago, think about what that would have meant for Pathfinder...
_pete
A whole bunch of us in my office went straight to Rat Shack as soon as we read the CueCAT message... We thought this was way cool.
We took the decode algorithm from uscan.sourceforge.net and kludged it into our website so that you can look up CD's and DVD's by scanning the UPC barcode.
#disclaimer: I work for Spun.com, a site for buying/selling new/used CD's and DVD's. But, honestly, we think this is really cool, and we just couldn't pass this up!
The URL is at http://www.new-sharon.me.us/upc.html you can read my source there as well.
Remeber that if you are using this on a windows computer you will need to turn off your :CRQ software first.
Greg
First things first. :)
http://uscan.sourceforge.net/upc.txt - Read it
Translating the first field (Dot-delimited fields) reveals your scanner serial number.
.C3nZC3nZC3nYChDXDxT0CNnY
000 000 001 342 687 101
000000001342687101 - They know who has which scanner. Mine has a different serial number but I don't want the wrath of the rat or the cat.
Second field:
.fHmc
UPA
(Yes, the protocol supports all sorts of characters)
Third field:
.C3T2ChPYDhrWDhf1
085 391 773 726
That's whatever code it read. It basically sticks to the syntax presented in the above text file, but some of it isn't shown.
Not complex, just a simple cipher.
Damn straight I do. No run along and play sonny, you're mama's callin' my name.
-Vercingetorix
-Vercingetorix
"Necessitas non habet legem." -St. Augustine
There's a lot of people who have responded to this article and drawn the wrong conclusions. I'll dispel a few myths:
It's clear that just from the design of the scanner, that Digital Convergence didn't intend it to be really that hard to reverse engineer the encoding method. That's already been done. The sourceforge project really is a good start, but ultimately any open source project also needs to be able to ask the questions of the DC database to get it's answers. Why? Well, think about it. Digital Convergence charges companies to store their UPC/ISBN/Whatever bar codes in their database with pointers to the product's website. How long do you think it will take DC to get mean once you start trying to kill their revenue stream? The other side of that is simple. Digital Convergence, would be definition have a large, established database full of bar codes and to whom they belong.
Now... here's my basic analysis of the datastream, just from playing with the few units I've got lying around (note that I'm crippled in that most of the units are not the retail version, so it's possible that something changed slightly -- I've only got 1 retail Cat). Note that all the tests I did below were done using a retail kit I obtained from my local Radio Shack.
The datastream seems to consists of 3 octets, each ending in a period. The first seems to be some kind of serial number. All the kits I have seem to prefix the first octet with 3nZC3nZC3nZ. The rest of the digits seem to be the same encoding method already published. The second octet seem to indicate either the length or the type of bar code. UPCs are "fHmc" ISBN's are "oGen" and the DC Cue's are "aabi", USP tacking numbers are "CNf7", Fedex Labels are "aaer", sort UPC (Coke cans..) are "fHmg". The third octet is of course the UPC symbol.
Unfortunately, I can't talk much about the Audio stream, or what the Winders software does over the network. Given what I know, these bits are probably pretty easy to figure out though.
Well, the Cue code is a special symbology. It appears to be a variable-bar-width code (4 different width) similar to the UPC, but without the UPC guard bands... I got my hands on the scanner 10 minutes ago. As others have already pointed out, the scanner will decodes the barcode... it just encrypts it so that you can't use the data directly...
This reminds me of the LaserDisc barcode readers. Remember how you could hook them up to your LD player, scan a barcode, and it would jump to a specific place on the disc?
I've been trying to tattoo a barcode on my forehead so potential employers can scan it to jump to a website with my resume!!! But the fun doesn't stop there! You can barcode anything. My next step is my pets.
... my local vet agrees with me that I could get my pets de-legged to make tattooing easier--after all a prone animal is easier to tattoo. Once this operation was performed, I managed to barcode all my pets! Now I have a house full of shaved, legless animals with barcodes on their heads which may be scanned so i can link to websites displaying pictures of their appearance before their "modifications" ...
;-)
I had some difficulty doing this to my cat, as I had to completely shave him down for the tattoo to go on easily. He didnt seem too happy about this and put up somewhat of a fight.
But, there was a solution
Cool eh ? !!!!
Shame that they couldn't have come up with a serial or USB version. Since almost every PCs already has their two PS2 connectors filled with a mouse and keyboard, I am at loss to see the free connector. If they had used USB, then the devices would be future proof and the serial versions would fit in the RS232 connector, but then again this might indicate that they realised this and are trying to get rid of them.
Jumpstart the tartan drive.
So, this technology allows me to easily identify
products and retrieve some associated website?
Mid-July I read an article saying that Toshiba
is working on a laserpointer-like device, that
will send out some unique signature, so you can
identify yourself easily. One of the ideas for
usage was: If you're arriving at some airport,
you point to the next infoterminal and you will
see for example an individualized description
where to pick up your rented car....
But I think, the new UMTS in connection with
some localization system (GPS or whatever) will
render that stuff useless (Probably our new
'mobile information terminals' will include
scanner and laser pointer - who know's?
M.
Reminds me of that free X10 stuff you can get. It works, and it's not a scam, but still .. it's kinda lame. A briefly amusing toy.
Yep. Free gizmo to plug into some port and make your computer look cooler, thereby attracting the babes.
---
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
...that it somehow tracks your scanning habits and reports them back to Radio Shack.
I may be paranoid, but these days, does that mean I'm wrong?
is in making magazine advertisement and catalog order competative again. They involve an employee opening letters and deciphering handwriting. omitting this bottleneck saves a lotta money.
"..don't you eat that yellow snow."
Its on page 133. (they need to start numbering EVERY PAGE.. I'm tired of having to flip back 2-3 pages to get a page number...)
Great. Now 25 Million geeks are going to storm their local Radio Shack (Which most of us would never set foot in otherwise anymore. Admit it.) tomorrow as soon as they open up. We're going to have lines that make opening day of Episode One pale in comparison.
This
Using the keyboard port for imput from a bar code reader is common practice. This is called a wedge interface. It just types in the code. You do have to be able to print codes in a format that the reader will recognize for it to work for your own applications.
/.,fm,email,others on your alpha pager or text cell phone.
jinj:
Having supported barcoding systems in my previous job, I got to have a fancy Symbol $3000 barcode gun next to my computer. These were the guns used in our warehouses for tracking.
However, he only real use I found for it was to be able to read all the obscene messages I had in barcode form around my cube.
-CausticPuppy "Of all the people I know, you're certainly one of them." -Somebody I don't know
The worst was the retired electrical engineer that took a job at RS. I came in and picked out an odd assortment of parts for a couple of different projects and he wanted to interrogate me as to why I was buying each and every part. And given a vague explanation of the various projects, he needed to tell me why what I was trying to do wasn't going to work. Now obviously he was a knowledgeable guy (a general exception for most RS employees) and was trying to be helpful but I don't go shopping to explain myself. And I neither need nor want the same level of customer care that someone buying overpriced CD players needs.
Bleh!
Ok, I got mine at the Radio Shack in Des Plaines IL over the weekend and just plugged it in on my Windoze machine.
The install was long and it asked a bunch of personal questions, but you can skip those. It also had an annoying narrator. One reboot later...it is working.
So I start scanning every barcode I can find without getting out of my chair. Since my office is always a mess, I had a bunch. My Pepsi can took my to the Pepsico site. Nice. My Highlander DVD took me to something called Ingram Entertainment. Never heard of them. It went downhill from there....
My WordPerfect 2000 for Linux CD, my KLF CD, my Sony USB memory stick reader, my Star Wars X-wing book (Iron Fist) and my Dexxa mini-mouse all came up as unknown. I also tried it on a stack of D-link products to no avail.
I guess it will only be useful for the RS catalog, if I keep the thing hooked up.
Viv
-----------
Viv
Gmail invites for ip
Radio Shack is merely one customer for the :CueCat. As mentioned, several magazines are getting on the wagon and inserting barcodes in their advertisements. It's not just Radio Shack getting in on it.
:CueCat have also got this thing that will allow "special broadcast cues to automatically direct your browser directly to where you need to go!"
No need for a scanner at all.
*** I am the real stylewagon
Having friends coming over for Futurama? Just dangle your last bottle in front of the sensor!
"Web Users Should Not Engage in Promiscuous Browsing" --CERT
Does anyone know what barcode format it reads?? I know there are several different formats but only a couple in widespread use (UPC labels, etc).
I'm 90% done with my I-Opener mods and this thing will go nicely with my idea of putting it in the kitchen. I'll set up some software so I can scan food items I've run out of and automatically generate a grocery list and maybe transfer it to a palm pilot. Or perhaps I could scan a few things that I do have and plug that into a recipe database and have it spit back out what meals I can make from those ingredients...
This is in addition to having a convenient place to quickly check mail and get my tech news fix from slashdot of course.
"Paper Referrer Stats"
Sure you can just type in the URL.
However, with the barcodes, it is possible that they are embedding other information in that barcode besides just a convienent way to get to additional information on the product.
This probably doesn't apply to the Radio Shack catalog, but for advertising, they could include information identifying which magazine/newspaper, even exactly which issue, the user is scanning.
This would give Wired and Fortune a darn good reason for footing the bill (see other comments about these two magazines' scanners) for the cost of the scanners. They could show their advertisers how effective advertising in their magazine is. Of course, this doesn't give exact numbers, but they would be able to say "at least" some number of hits to their site were because of this.
I have no evidence of this being in the barcodes (I have neither barcode scanner nor catalog/ad at this time), but it is a possibility...
I can't believe no one sees the big picture here.
Why would they be giving away bar code readers?
To make you look at their catalog? Of course not!
So they start by giving away the bar code readers. If the stuff becomes popular, they will stop giving them away, and people will buy them. But that's not where the big bucks are. It's just good for the scanner factories. And I'm sure they will be happy to let other companies sell Cue:cats
Think about it: whenever you scan your can of cola or your favourite magazine, your computer connects to Cue:cat, sends the code you scanned (and probably your ID as well, I don't know -- can someone check that?). Then, their server sends back the URL of some webpage.
Now, here is where they win: if their software becomes popular, their server will be the main gateway of all bar code readers. So if you scan a book, where is it going to go? To Amazon or barnes and nobles? If you scan a DVD, the logical URL would be the corresponding record of www.imdb.com. But do you really think it will ever send you there? They have no reason to set it up that way. So here is their first advantage: they control where you go on the net. And how long before it sends you to a "Pepsi is better" page whenever you scan a can of coke.
And then, if I am right to suppose that they send your ID with every scan, they can also collect a huge amount of info about you.
I think the idea of being able to scan a barcode and get a relevant URL is cool. But the interpretation of the code should not be left to one organization only. LET'S REACT!!! We should quickly release a concurrent software for Linux, Windows and Mac, and create an open search engine. The software should be open source so you can check it doesn't invade your privacy. The gateway you use should be configurable so that if you don't like the practices of one, you can switch to another. Ideally, I would imagine a gateway in which users could vote on the best URL for a bar code.
Let's create this OPEN:Cat FAST, before Radio Shack takes over the world! http://uscan.sourceforge.net is a step in the right direction, now we need to set up the server.
-- Slef
From what I can gather, FBM wrote software that works with their hardware. This violates no copyright law, unless the DMCA somehow figures into it (side beef: the DMCA is not copyright, it is use-right).
It might be one of those "software patent" or "business plan patent" cases. Do they hold a patent for using a scanner to get information based on a bar code? If so, they might have a legal (though, IMHO, illegitemate) beef.
Finally, though not likely, they are trying to enforce a license agreement. I don't have one of these scanners, so I don't know what sort of click-through licensing there is. However, these traditionally apply only to the software which is being thrown away here.
If it isn't any of the above, I figure they don't have a leg to stand on. They might as well have Craftsman sue me for using a claw hammer as a meat tenderizer.
--The basis of all love is respect
actually, in europe they do that. well, not shops and not exactly free, but still: you just have to sign to their service for a year and the operator give you a phone. and these services usually aren't much worse then normal.
disclaimer: I might be right.
Now that I have the software running, I must say that it's kind of a pain in the butt. You have to give focus to their interface before it recognizes that you are scanning. I guess I expected it to just watch the keyboard input for it's ID string and go from there.
Also, of the items at my desk, only the codes from a Wiley publishers book, the Radio Shack catalog, and the paper insert that came with the mouse actually resolve (well, the books go to an invalid page, but they are actually trying to go to catalog.wiley.com). None of my CDs were in there, my cans of Whoop Ass soda came up blank (don't worry, I submitted their info for the database), and darnit, it couldn't recognize the bar code from my package of Muscat Gummy Candy from Kasugai Seika Co. out of Nagoya, Japan. :)
So, apparently, they're just waiting for us to dump data in there. Believe you me, if this thing catches any kind of momentum with Joe Sixpack, Digital:Convergence will have marketing info out the wazzoo to sell to the highest bidders. Give people a toy, ask them for some demographics, and let them have fun giving you data at no expense to D:C.
It's a tidy little package, but, if it weren't for /., I wouldn't have even known the things existed.
Now THAT is a handy idea that could really benefit us... ...if only someone took the time and effort to write the code for it. Here's hoping.
-GS
------
Let me give you the lowdown
1. Cat, not mouse. Stinkin' animal controllers.
2. Upon further experimentation, I have found that the CRQ software does recognize the string coming from the scanner, even if it doesn't have focus. Don't know why this wasn't working for me before, but it's working now.
I went to their site and they have this printed at the bottom of their page:
Don't worry... we haven't forgotten Mac Users
And, it takes you to a page to fill out your name so they can spam you when the Mac version is available. So, I wrote to ask them when the Linux version would be available. They didn't forget Linux users... they just didn't include them.
I havent installed the software either.. just wanna play with scanning codes.. thing is, it decodes into a proprietary code.. so what I wanna know is, how do you translate.
:D
.C3nZC3nZC3nYChDXDxT0CNnY.fHmc.C3T2ChPYDhrWDhf1
into
085391773726 ?
Kudos to whoever figures out what that 'product' is
~A
Linux, Vai, Satch and Guitars.. that is the life ICQ# 7357858
I don't know how many people (read non-geeks) that have been suprised by the fact that you can type in the location bar in a browser. Seriously. We take it for granted, but there are people out there that can barely use their computer let alone figure out they can type in there.
The first time I saw this someone was using a search engine to go to known url.
"Why don't you just type it in?"
"I did"
"No, in the location bar..up there"
"You can do that?"
Scary thought, but yeah, there's TONS of people out there like that :)
Like other posts, long as they aren't using some program to track you it's a cool idea.
Good idea for the local paper or a magazine where they could have barcodes along with a story and it take you to more information on the web. I'm sure there are people out there that would enjoy that.
Could be scary too. I can imagine the scanner-spam already. Just a bar-code with nothing by it. :)
- C3nZC3nZC3nZC3bXChvXC3nX : 000000000032362002
- C3nZC3nZC3nZC3bWD3D3C3nX : 000000000033444002
- C3nZC3nZC3nZDhj2ENnYCNnY : 000000000715901101
All from the same box at the same Radio Shack. Looks like a serial to me. *sigh*Forbes Magazine distributed those to all of their subscribers. The ads in forbes will now all have barcodes, which when scanned by this will take input the URL of one of Forbes' e-commerce partners. They probably get a cut of the sale too.
Opinionated Law Student Strikes Again!
Has anyone noticed that, since this thing plugs into your keyboard port, by definition, the driver it uses is capturing all of your keystrokes?
Hmm, maybe that should be looked into...
It does basically the same thing. A cue will pop up on the bottom corner of the screen (next to those great network logos we all love) and a signal will be sent. Your sound card picks it up and the software decodes it and sends you to the selected site. Very nice for certain things. Advertisers will love it. A Sears commercial comes on and they play the Cue and poof you go to the sears site...or maybe the special sears promotion for CRQ users only. Maybe you like football and you are watching a game and the cue pops up as they are talking about a certain player. This could take you to more info on the player...like his stats for that year. Lots of good uses if they put any thought behind it.
The device uses the PS/2 keyboard port, something not commonly found on a PalmPilot. It probably draws it's power from the port as well, making it even less likely to be successfully used with a Pilot. OTOH, there are barcode scanners available for PalmOS.
I do not deploy Linux. Ever.
Go to the :CueCat website for details on the reader, including the Radio Shack promotion.
:CueCat reader and :CRQ System Software for the cost of shipping (I'm assuming this is for those folks without a Radio Shack nearby). Click here to link directly to the order form. Note that they won't be taking orders until August 24th.
They will send you a
So far, the software only supports Windows 95, 98, NT 4, and Windows2000.
Neopets - the best free game on the Int
i know what im using mine for! print out a list of my mp3s with barcodes next to them. who needs a keypad to type in the track number
From the FAQ:
:CRQ software installed on my computer for my :CueCat to work?
:CueCat device and :CRQ software work hand-in-hand. You must install the :CRQ software for your :CueCat device to work. :CRQ software reads Cues that are placed in any broadcast or other medium with audio. By having both a :CueCat device and the :CRQ software and connector cord installed, you can receive web pages both from print and broadcast. :CRQ software acts as a media manager that stores, sorts, filters, and presents all the Cues sent to your computer by broadcast and print Cues.
Do I need
Yes. The
What kind of technology is this? I don't recall hearing anything recently about embedding URL's in audio.
________
Does anyone actually have a Java program designed to control air traffic, or for the operation of a nuclear facility?
As an employee of RadioShack, that article is true. You can scan barcodes/UPC's from almost any product and it will take you to a related website. Any RShack product UPC/barcode will bring you to RadioShack, if it doesn't have it's own SKU #, it just brings you to the mainpage. On a side note, USB versions of the Cue Cat will be out VERY soon. You can get one free, generally if you just tell them you're a heavy shopper and ask for a catalog. Also, this technology is fairly new, soon you will see those barcodes like you see in the 2001 RadioShack Unlimited Catalog in magazines like Forbes, etc..
Please come get one. They take up too much room in my already crowded back room. Problem is the way our distribution works, theyll probably send me twice as many. Good thing my company isnt fitting the bill on this otherwise my stock might devalue.
I Don't Work Here
This is what happends nearly every time I buy something at Radio Shack...
"Can I help you?" Says the sales person shortly after I walk into the store "No" is my reply...
"Can I help you" meaning "Do you need any help finding what you need? You have walked right past the products section and walked directly into the electronics section".
"No" as in "No I'm looking for a T95A for my flux capacitor.. I know where to find it.. I know what it looks like... I probably even know how much it costs... but chances are you don't even know what a T95A is..."
Occasionally Radio Shack employees are basicly Collage techs but usually I'm dealing with someone who knows more about sales than anything.
At one time I liked finding the collage kid in the croud... the sales clerk who knows hardware...
At one time they were all techs...
But there came a point when I couldn't find the knowladgeable sales clerk... they were all sales and no tech... I got tired of explainning simple cables....
Thankfully I do most of my shopping at a local electronics shop... I only buy mass market junk at Radio Shack... sence the small local electronics shop dosn't sell that stuff...
And I really should go to the music electronics shop for my audio needs but they aren't very close by.......
I don't actually exist.
:What's :with :the :stupid :name?
I wonder what page it'll take me to if i scan the barcode off of the persons neck in the ZeroKnowledge ads? Probably RadioShack(TM) cloaking devices or something of the sort.
actually it should be quite simple to work around these things. have some small TSR that sits and listens to STDIN and passes everything to STDOUT until it encounters an ALT-F10. WHen it gets this, it wakes, listens for the next character. If it is anything other than a . pass the ALT-F10 to STDOUT, if it is a ., buffer STDIN until the next RETURN, then perform some very simple deocding on it, and spit it back out to STDOUT. Freshmeat even has a perl script that has the decoding logic. Just wish I had some clue how to write this one (don't know the windows API, or enough about linux to write a TSR like this)
Anybody out there up to the task?
I think....therefore I am
I reject your reality
..anything.
I got mine today. Walked in and asked for it, they handed it to me no questions asked.
Hokey statistics and ancient misconceptions are no match for a good thought in your head, kid!
Forbes magazine says they are rolling the :cue:C.A.T. out soon. Publications with barcodes start 9/11/00.
Less than a hundred bucks if you're willing to do a little hardware hacking. I scored a brand new still shrink wrapped reader (Even still had a covered sticky pad on the bottom for mounting) for about $12 from an on-line surplus outlet. If anyone really needs the info I still have their address here somewhere, no promises on wether or not they still have card readers. It's got TTL output but with a little bit code on a PIC chip it will talk serial just fine. There's probably an easier way to do it but I had a bunch of PIC's laying around.
The best part was justifying it to my friends..."I'm sick of typing in my credit card number every time I want to buy something on-line!". Most of them just assumed I was trying to find a way to hack more money into my cards (not possible since it's not stored on the card, and this thing is a reader only).
I'm not sure how much one with a serial interface would run but for $12 I love mine!
--- Juggle juggle@hitesman.com
Is there an SDK/DLL files on the associated CD that let custom applications interface with the barcode scanner? This could be really cool for grocery delivery services; just scan in the empty can/box/etc. and a new one will arrive at your door in 24 hours!
ByteMyCode.com: A Web 2.0 code sharing community.
An AC so politely told us that they aren't free.
Once upon a time, I helped set up a new Radio Shack franchise - the barcode reader there simply plugged off a Y-adapter into the AT keyboard port, and when it scanned an item, it simply typed the decimal UPC number out. It's quite likely - especially since it plugs into a keyboard port - that this scanner works the same way. There might be some odd control codes in there, but fundamentally these things represent themselves to the computer as keyboards.
Look here
They are working with NBC, FORBES, Wired, and Radio Shack among others.
Frankly I like the zappy and pen from Symbol more...
I recall seeing in the latest Wired that they were going to send all their subscribers a barcode reader to let them do the same thing with barcoded ads.
There must be big money in this somewhere. The previous issue of Wired had all the ads encoded with a watermarking technology that supposedly let you hold an ad up to a video camera and extract a URL from it. Even the current issue still has an ad by these video readable ad guys, though this technology sounds too complex and ads a noticable distortion to the ad backgrounds.
I suppose the next step is to print unique barcodes for every ad in every copy of the magazine / catalog printed, allowing them to track all sorts of interesting things.
Ain't technology grand?
G.
lol
I'm pretty skeptical about service agreements, like some goofy thing I heard about lately. Buy someone's PC and pay only a couple hundred AFTER you agree to 2 years of someone's service. Yeah, right. When I can get internet service for free or much cheaper anyway. I prefer to pick my own portals, thank you very much.
Vote Naked 2000
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Ever play with bar codes? It's fun stuff. Like the time I reverse engineered the student ID barcode at my college, and generated a new one and printed it out with some shareware program and taped it discreetly to my student ID, over the correct one. I could've gotten free meals for a while if my conscience hadn't kicked in 8)
It's 10 PM. Do you know if you're un-American?
... for e-com and such. Having to swipe a card almost ensures that the number/dates are correct (reducing the number of bad transactions due to this) and would reduce the damage from the next cdnow incident (if only swiped card numbers were accepted). And besides, it's easier to track our purchases this way [not flamebait].
There are 1.1... kinds of people.
If you tell them you have an "older" computer then you can get two free DIN->mini-DIN converters with the device, according to their web site.
Jealous?
Are these lovely things going to be available in Canada too? (preferably at the website as I don't feel like showing myself at the local radio shack)
From time to time I've felt a need for a barcode scanner (although the intended purpose of the device is, imho, rather silly... i belong to the crowd prefering to just type the url in).
Sure you have... Anytime you've heard someone read a URL on the radio, or in a TV ad, it's been embedded in audio!
Heh, sorry, I just couldn't resist...
yeah, i worked for radioshack, until 8/20 because now i'm moving for college. anyway, yes, the cuecat is meant for the 2001 catalog. and according to internal memos, they cannot be distributed because the site is/was not operational at that moment. also, internal memos claim that any employee that doesn't get the customer's name and address when giving out a CAT will be terminated. RS knows the value of these things to people like us, so they're keeping track of everyone. the CAT uses a LED, not a laser, and uses a PS/2 passthrough cable to the keyboard (memos give guidephrases in tech support... "remember! cats and mice don't mix, so tell customers to plug it into the keyboard!" as for the USB version, yes one will be available, but NOT publicly. you have to CLAIM you have the compaq presario that only has FIREWIRE & USB... (stupid POS system). the USB versions are ONLY for those customers, since they don't have ps/2, serial, or parallel ports. and all stores have the catalogs, but it's up to the discretion of the salesperson whether or not you get it free. some people (pay is commission based) will require you to buy something over X amount of dollars, where X usually is 10$. yeah RatShack has some issues regarding the intelligence of its employees, but they're going to carry a crapload more of PC equipment instore... a few UPS's, the MS Intellimouse Optical (49.99). check out the catalog. it's a good read while in the bathroom :P
-Greg
I don't think that you can do that much with a bar coder reader. However, a Magnetic card reader would be great. Someone out there must know how much the cost and where to get them. All sorts of cards use a magnetic strip. Not many use barcodes. What about a smart card reader/writer? I'd love to put money on my FSU smart card.Any ideas?
TechBargains.com mentioned availability of this device a couple of days ago. I've found this site to be a good resource; check it out.
Now they've got me doing their restock ordering for them!
"..don't you eat that yellow snow."
is this to say they give you a barcode reader for FREE to keep for ever and ever.. never have to give it back????
Dirty Pirate Hooker
type in 15-25 characters
A short URL might be the case for going straight to a company website (say, the website for a new game), but the savings is even greater for jumping stright to the detailed information for a catalog item: URLs like that are typically rather long.
It's like his own personal Holocaust. And to think people died trying to escape what he has voluntarily performed upon himself.
It might be a good way to test those barcode readers.
--
Gleepy the Hen. More intelligent than the average hen.
So far, the software only supports Windows 95, 98, NT 4, and Windows2000.
:-)
Aah, not true! This thing works just like having a second keyboard installed...you can literally just plug it in, turn the computer on, open up Notepad (or whatever) and swipe something...an encoded version of the bar code will be "typed" at the cursor as though you had typed it out yourself. Refer to the parent of this thread for the translation tables.
Gotta go -- I haven't swiped every damn thing in my house yet.
"Sweet creeping zombie Jesus!"
-The Professor, Futurama
This gets sent at the start of every scan. No matter what the item is. I think it's definately a serial number. I'm not surprised one bit though.
My other first post is car post.
About four days ago, a few people I know and myself cracked the simple cipher the reader uses, so don't bother trying yourself. Just go to this page and see it and try out our PHP beta translator and whatever-er at this page. If you wanna help, send an email to jackw@users.sourceforge.net and let me know, as this is completely a GPL project designed to make the most out of this reader.
Barcodes hold very little information. Depending on the code, you get a single digit for every three lines or so. Usually each line is 2 bits. Missing, Thin, Medium, Fat, or somesuch.
I suspect what is really going on is the barcodes represent some sort of key into a file that comes with the software they give you, and that the file is what contains all the information. I'd be absolutely amazed if you could even get a basic URL in the average barcode. (Though I've not yet seen the codes in question.)
The cake is a pie
About 8 years ago, I picked up a barcode reader that probably works the same way -- the keyboard plugs into the scanner, the scanner plugs into the kb port, and the scanner simply transmits the barcode as if you had typed the equivalent text. It was in a dumpster near where I was working, and I dug it out, took it home, and plugged it in. It worked, and I was happy.
Then I tried to think of something to use it for. And came up empty.
I used it once or twice while working on a project that required printing some barcodes, but other than that, I never really used it.
So I have to say I'm not sure this will be of much use to anyone, except, perhaps, for the purpose Radio Shack intended it.
Which does not mean, of course, that I'm not going to run out first thing tomorrow and pick up one for myself. 8^)
Stupid people will be persecuted to the fullest extent allowed by law.
Hey, this sounds really great, but does anyone out there have any clue to wheter it is also available in Radio Shacks in Canada? Or is this yet another case when us friendly Canuck geeks get the corporate shaft of ignorance? ;)
Actually that gives me a idea... why not set up a terminal in your bathroom (waterproof of course) so you can browse the web or send email to your friends/family while your doing the more mundane things of life like using the toilet or relaxing in your tub...
Nathaniel P. Wilkerson
NPS Internet Solutions, LLC
Nathaniel P. Wilkerson
www.haidacarver.com
actually to use it without going through the survey part you just run setup.exe from the disk instead of letting it autorun. all they ask for is a name and e-mail address.
Inventory of all your books and CD's. Maybe we can produce a database similar to the CD music databases for books and magazines.
Cheap Linux based Point of Sale terminal.
Print up yard sale tags for multiple family yard sales and total up the sales at the end of day by family.
Inventory tags for a small business.
For the institutional pharmacy, tag your drugs and tag the patient label and scan in both to ensure that the drug dispensed matches the drug prescribed on the patients' label.
Use bar coded ID tags at security stations such as convention entrances to see if the individual is allowed to enter the event.
Anyone else have any other suggestions? I have to go watch "That 70's Show" now or I would thing of some more.
-- Never make a general statement.
A friend and I just went out and got a CueCat today.
...
We first went to the Radio Shack in Horsham, PA. I asked if they had any CueCat scanners. The young guy gave me a blank stare for a moment, but then a lightbulb went off in his head. He said yeah, and went to the back room.
Apparently his supervisor was in the backroom. They seemed to loot through a few boxes before they found the things, as they yelled to us "how many do you need?". Two I replied. He then brought them to the front. The employee and manager tried to figure out how to ring them up. Finally he just typed in the SKU and "oh wow, see it already rings up as zero-zero-zero" He then proceeded to ask for my name. I love radio shack.
"Why do you need my name?" "For the computer." "Yeah, why?" "We need your name or we can't give you one". Ok.
John, John Williams. (My filmscores are quite famous!) "Ok I have a few in here" [to my amusement] "Oh, let me see the screen" [tilts screen to me] "Yeah, that ones me". I happily get handed a CueCat.
My friend I'm with promptly invents an identity on the spot. I try hard not to crack up laughing. He also gets one.
We decided to try another Radio Shack, this time Huntingdton Valley, PA. I think I'll be Randy Edelman this time
Anyhow. Hm darn, this Radio Shacks doing business. We wait [business at a radio shack? Sure thing somethings wrong!]. Anyhow we get an older gentlemen who seems to know what hes doing. I ask if they have CueCat scanners. He says "yeah" [pregnant pause] "The CueCat scanners.. you know, the free ones?". Utoh.
"No you see here's the deal. They're not free alone. You have to buy a catalog [what?!] and you get one free with it. But we don't have the catalogs now. If you want one it will be $2.95"
"Oh uh, ok"
I leave dejected. Not bored enough to argue my way into a second free barcode scanner. Anyhow, these things are pretty uh, crappy. I tried it at work scanning it on some stuff, it understood like not a single UPC code we threw at it [lotta computer stuff]. I have mine at home here now. I installed the software [god thats an AWFUL AWFUL install routine]. I can't find the icon, I can't even find it on the hard drive. Oops, can we say software bug?
Anyhow, go screw over your local big-brother-database Tandy friends today and pickup a useless CueCat! Although it sure does look cool in the dark as a case ornament. And I'm sure there's people hacking these things as we speak so they're you know, USEFUL.
So I won't get in to it. :) BUT, Digimarc uses digital watermarking. You hold the ad up to a web cam and it reads the watermark and goes to the ad's page. I've played around with it and sometimes it works pretty well, other times it doesn't.