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Another Free Cue* Gadget At Radio Shack
dizgusted writes: "DigitalConvergence, fine purveyors of the infamous CueCat, are back with CueTV. URLs will be encoded in TV programs. A free gadget, again from Radio Shack, will send them to a PC where a browser can load the page. Now one can be mesmerized by two devices simultaneously. More here." The article's a few weeks old, but apparently within the week is when these devices will show up at Radio Shacks.
Does anyone have any info on this? Sounds like it would just about have to be a similiar setup, with mpeg capabilities. How great would this be? I hope this means simply DVD-r. PLEASE, let it mean DVD-r...
"Now one can be mesmerized by two devices simultaneously"
Now? You mean I am the only person who plays EverQuest while watching Oprah?
ABC Enhanced TV has been doing what it needs to do since 1999, without any extra hardware. They control when things are broadcast on your television, and synch the content on their web site to that broadcast. Of course they have to offer something you'd be interested in, like additional trivia for statistomaniacal sports nuts, or real-time polls or whatever. That way you'll put up with the Enhanced Commercials on your computer :-).
Perhaps the most touted benefit was a gimmick for Monday Night Football viewers. They had a well-educated representative from Britannica.com provide real-time explanations of Dennis Miller's notoriously obscure references. (Yeah, they could have done this with text on the TV - like I said, it was a gimmick).
Cue's idea could theoretically allow the same sort of thing without the need for precise scheduling. You'd be able to synch web info even if you're watching a videotape, for example. Or marketers could record the "links" right into their infomercials, broadcast them whenever local rates happen to be cheap, and still be able to launch mounds of pop-up ads on your computer before you can hit the mute button.
The idea of allowing television broadcasts to control proprietary closed-source software on your computer that connects to the Internet has some amazingly evil possibilities. It's an almost Microsoft-like idea, except for its being doomed to financial failure.
Why would anyone want to have those "cues"? It is not easy to put wires on the floor (or hide them in walls, ceiling), so some effort is needed. But where is the benefit? Even if I once in a blue moon see a useful ad (can't recall such case though) I can always write down the info and research it later. At least the cat was a novelty. A bunch of wires isn't. Most people don't even have the computer on when they aren't using it. DC apparently thinks people run their PCs non-stop... but that's not true.
Head Engineer: We messed up big time. Why did we make a product that was useful in other ways than what we designed?
Head of Marketing: Meh. We need some type of product that's useless to anyone.
HE: I know! What if we have a way to connect your TV to your computer? Geeks use TV tuners cards in their computers, and REAL geeks- the kind who can reverse engineer anything, don't watch TV!
HM: Genius.
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Just sit back down and relax as we plug this IV into your arm. No need for you to think anymore. We've taken care of that for you.
I picked mine up at the shack on Wednesday. Its basically an audio patch wedge on one end, and a stereo mini-jack on the other. Go get one and give fake info. For some reason, they dont even include software with them, but you can get it with a cuecat.... if ya WANT it.
Hey, this could be the new method for doing accurate real-time Nielson ratings. When do we get our chips embedded into us? These were available at the State College, PA Radio Shacks on June 1st. Its just an RCA cable with an end that plugs into your sound card. If anyone wants free cables, go grab them. How many losers can a company create and still stay in business? I guess two at least.
I just check the NBC/CueCat web site and saw that the show that will have "Cue-enhanced commercials" is none other than
Now, how appropriate can that be? I mean, one of the lamest game shows on television today being the vehicle for testing your CueCat link? It is to laugh...
The C-Text service was launched in, if memory serves, 1973. This used one of the top lines in the vertical blanking interval (line 16? Anyone remember that detail?) to transmit text at a respectable rate over a standard TV channel. The data stream was organized in numbered frames of about 300 characters each, and the system transmitted 15 C-Text data frames per second. A set-top box would scan the datastream for a frame with the frame number selected by the user; when that frame was received by the box it would put the data into a buffer and display the text on the TV screen.
In the system demo I saw, the frame numbers were three decimal digits. Mini-computers (DEC PDP-11/70s) would structure the datastream and feed it to the transmission system. One reason for using the PDP-11/70s was that the head-per-track disk that seemed to be standard equipment for those computers could ensure that frame assembly could be done in real time. The software kept a "play list" of frame numbers, so that common frames would be transmitted frequently while less-common frames would be transmitted at less frequent intervals.
The reason I saw this demo was that Rockwell was thinking about launching a C-Text type service in the United States. When Marketing was done chewing the numbers, the resulting opinion was that offering the service didn't have a large enough ROI to justify the expense and risk. So Rockwell said "thanks, but no thanks." Broadcasters were worried that C-Text data would interfere with the transmission-quality test signals built into lines 18 and 19, and the telcos echoed the feeling.
Think about this one second. They can send the data at specified times to certain areas of their TV networks, and when the next time you log on your computer, they can then match up that data with your computer and know the general area where you are located (and to a very good degree). No more hassle with haveing you input you address anymore, cause the only way you would have gotten that signal was if you had a TV that got that signal.
The only way I would EVER think about getting one of these is if they:
1) would gaurentee that they would not share or sell the database information to anyone else
2) would allow me to view and edit any and all information collected about me
3) if the company goes out of business, the data in the database can not be considered a company asset and thus be sold to anyone, specificly a clause that would state that the data about me ultimatly belongs to me, and that I am only leasing to the company the rites to view and use the data.
I don't want to sound like I am paraniod or anything, its just that I truely feel the internet has become just a comercial entity in which the users of it are just giving more food to the corporations in a much easier way for them to collect and keep checks on that information. I would truely rather be an anonymous entity in a huge group of anonymous entities, thus giving me the freedom to express my opinions and beliefs without any fear of personal backlash. A place where I can be whoever I want whenever I want, do things that I would never even dream of doing in real life and not have to worry about those actions comming back to haunt me at some later time because someone was cataloging them and had a way to tell exactly who I was EVERY SINGLE TIME I go online.
Still, I don't see how they're going to convince thousands of people to string audio cables between the TV and the computer.
ABC's enhanced tv much does it smarter. By syncing the web site to the television timing you get exactly the same effect. TV commercials on "Who Wants to be a Millionaire" result in the same ad on your computer screen..
Was done by Illiad..
...but not for their intended purpose. I loved the original CueCat and audio cable because the cable was great for audio capture, and the cuecat - well! Taking that sucker apart for spare parts (wires primarily) was a very nice way to spend an afternoon. I wouldn't want to pay for these things, but if Cue wants to give me cheesy electronic gadgets to take apart or do something useful with, more power to them.
Idea for Cue: Why not give away CueCams, digital video cameras that connect to your computer and send your browser to any URL they see on any visual media? I promise I would not use it as a webcam. Honest.
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