Hucksters, Suckers, and the Cue:Cat

Someone in the Know writes: "Now that it's almost completely over for Digital:Convergence, D Magazine (Dallas) unveiled the investments and the suckers surrounding the Cue:Cat and its creator J. Jovan Philyaw. I especially liked the Coca-Cola executive's observation: "... said listening to Philyaw made him feel like his hair was on fire". This was passed around ex-employees and we all got a kick out of it. The company is still alive, apparently, but not doing much anymore."

Comments

Too bad.

[Sabby]

This sounded like it was going to be a neat technology. I got myself a CueCat and tried it out for a while, but it did seem a little too overhyped and a little too "head in the clouds."

Re:Too bad.

[plover]

Someone else got "sold" on this neat technology:

IBM.

The catalogs I get from their enterprise group all have :CueCat barcodes on them.

Just when you thought IBM was going to grow a clue...

John

Re:damn

[Anonymous Coward]

you beat me.. damn!

Oh..i remember those things...

[NeoSkandranon]

one of my books for college came with a whole page of barcodes for one...having the little scanner gizmo could be fun..but whats the point? learn to type

Land for Sale

[bowb69]

Now if I could only get them to invest in some real estate in Florida....

RIAA, take note

[AntiNorm]

The company is still alive, apparently, but not doing much anymore.

Just goes to show you what happens when a company tries to make its living by suing people.

symbols

[Frizzled]

the cue cat has to be one of the top five symbols of the dot-com era (or, atleast up there with razor scooters). you have to wonder who thought this gizmo up though ... who reads magazines in-front of the computer?

now - if there was a wireless version that worked in the bathroom, they'd be millionaires right now

_f

Re:symbols

[Skuld-Chan]

not to mention it was hard to scan cue cat upcs. I got one and I played around with it - it was nifty, but eventually it ended up on the floor behind my computer (with all the other devices I never use) because I never really could actually use it for anything useful. 90% of the time you'd scan a can of pop right? And all it would do is take you to their website - think about it. I had to go to the fridge, get the pop, scan it just to view a website - where I could have just sat there on my ass and type in www.pepsi.com.

Re:symbols

[Anonymous Coward]

"if there was a wireless version that worked in the bathroom"

What have you been eating?!?

Re:symbols

[darsal]

now - if there was a wireless version that worked in the bathroom, they'd be millionaires right now

Oh but there is...

I got a Symbol 1502 keychain scanner for the cost of shipping from "VAR Reseller" magazine. Got the SDKs from Symbol's site, and now I'm scanning wherever I feel like it.

Turns out, I don't feel like it much. Could be 'cause it wasn't free (as in beer) so there hasn't been a groundswell of hackerly support, and I'm on my own figuring out how to hook it into existing databases.

Could be 'cause there just plain isn't all that much I want to scan in the bathroom.

(I -did- figure out that a buddy's dorky bar-code tattoo is the UPC off a box of tampons...)

Re:symbols

[blkros]

who reads magazines in-front of the computer?

uh...well...actually, I do.

I'm using my cue cat...

[hartsock]

as a door stop. It truly changed the way I used the internet... my office is cooler!

Re:I'm using my cue cat...

[Grape Shasta]

I use just a standard cat for this and it works perfectly well. I don't need one of these fancy hi-tech models!

Re:I'm using my cue cat...

[sharkey]

Just don't forget to shellack it to keep down the smell.

Re:I'm using my cue cat...

[dprice]

My co-worker uses it for a light beacon. It is propped up by the window, and one can see the beacon from the parking lot. They certainly put bright LEDs in the cue cat.

Re:I'm using my cue cat...

[VFVTHUNTER]

I'm "using" mine too. I cut the actual 'cat' off the end of it, wired that to a female PS2 port, and made a nice PS2 Y-cable. Considering it was free and Y's cost $35 at Best Buy, this is great. I love my cue cat!

Re:I'm using my cue cat...

[TechnoLust]

I did a little rewiring of mine... Hooked it to a 220 power supply. I use it to weld my co-workers computer cases shut. We all need a hobby, I guess.

Not every device is worth billions of dollars

[Faldgan]

One of the problems that a lot of the 'dot-bombs' have seen is that their product is just fine, but occupies a niche that just isn't a large market. I worked for a company that had a half-way decent product, and the revenue of this product could have supported a dozen people, or even twenty or so. But our CEO (who couldn't add 13 and 7 correctly) was hyped, and thought we needed a 100+ employee company, and millions of dollars in investment, and that we could make billions of dollars. NO. Not every product is a revolution. Not every product needs to have a "225-person workforce"
Advice to executives: Don't hire unless you need some work done that your current employees can't handle.

Re:Not every device is worth billions of dollars

[gwernol]

One of the problems that a lot of the 'dot-bombs' have seen is that their product is just fine, but occupies a niche that just isn't a large market. I worked for a company that had a half-way decent product, and the revenue of this product could have supported a dozen people, or even twenty or so. But our CEO (who couldn't add 13 and 7 correctly) was hyped, and thought we needed a 100+ employee company, and millions of dollars in investment, and that we could make billions of dollars. NO. Not every product is a revolution. Not every product needs to have a "225-person workforce" Advice to executives: Don't hire unless you need some work done that your current employees can't handle.

This is right on the money, but remember why the phenomenon has come about. Many, if not most, of the dot bombs were funded by venture capitalists. VCs gamble large sums of money on young comapnies, knowing that only 1 in 10 of them will ever make it to a "liquidity event" (i.e. an IPO or sellout to Microsoft). So those 10% of comapnies that make it have to be worth enough to cover the investments in the other 90% of companies, plus make a big return on the total investment. That, like it or not, is how VCs work.

The upshot is that VCs are not interested in, and won't invest in, companies that aren't going to rapidly (within 5 years) grow to a large size (at least $250 million a year in revenues). The only way to get VC money is to pitch your company as that kind of opportunity. If you go to a VC with a plan to build a small but profitable company, they will politely show you the door.

This is a major cause of ridiculous business plans that have no basis in reality.

If you want to build a small, niche business you can, just don't expect to get VC money to do it - you have to find your seed capital elsewhere; rich friends or parents, huge credit card bills or another mortgage on your house.

Re:Not every device is worth billions of dollars

[jiheison]

All true, but, surely there is a way to start a company without VC money.

It seems to me that the CEOs are just as culpable as the VCs. Both are looking to get rich quick. If the original posters CEO was willing to start small and build gradually, they might have survived.

Re:Not every device is worth billions of dollars

[RobertFisher]

A lot of the scaling of companies was fed by the desire to obtain venture capital funds, and hence, on the way that venture capitalists operate. A large VC firm might receive say, $500M in funds to partition off to individual investors. They simply cannot manage 5,000 different investments of $100,000 apiece -- once you add up their overheads, and the typical failure rate of a startup, there is no way they could be profitable on such a small scale. So they typically fund a few tens of companies from anywhere from a few million to tens of millions of dollars apiece. The bigger, the better.

Of course, a lot of this had to do with the notion that one had to rush to market to get the most market share, which is an idea that has come to be closely scrutinized today.

Bob

Re:Not every device is worth billions of dollars

[jmauro]

A lot of times the CEOs are installed by the VCs. The founders know not to grow that fast, but because the VC wants his money back with profit now, he'll use his ownership of the company to see to it that the event he's looking for does occur.

Re:Not every device is worth billions of dollars

[Samrobb]

Nathan Brazil?

Mavra Chang!

Re:Not every device is worth billions of dollars

[mikeboone]

A good article related to this. Talks about trying to stick it out after the Dot Bomb has exploded.

Re:Not every device is worth billions of dollars

[gwernol]

All true, but, surely there is a way to start a company without VC money.

Absolutely there are, and I was trying to mention some at the end of my comment. A good way is to borrow enough money to start your company. Good if you have great credit or rich parents or friends. There are also government and bank small business loans you can apply for. Or you can simply try to live off any savings you have while you try to bootstrap your business. Or any combination of these and other methods.

It seems to me that the CEOs are just as culpable as the VCs. Both are looking to get rich quick. If the original posters CEO was willing to start small and build gradually, they might have survived.

Certainly some CEOs are guilty of this. Many others are genuinely trying to build a business but don't realise just what pressure they will come under from the VCs. And this isn't just about greed and trying to "get rich quick". Most of the CEOs and VCs I've met and worked with are genuinely interested in building strong, successful, viable businesses. But you have to understand the economics of this.

VCs are usually funded by limited partners - typically large institutional investors like pension funds and banks. These limited partners want at least a 100% return on their money, otherwise why not invest in stocks or bonds which have much less risk attached? If VCs invest $10 million in each company, then the 1 company in 10 that succeeds has to make the VCs at least $200 million when it is sold before the VCs get any money back at all. Not many companies command a $300 - $400 million valuation required to generate that return within a few years of being founded.

Only companies that have a real shot at growing that fast that quickly should go the VC funding route. Otherwise, find another way to get your business started.

Re:Not every device is worth billions of dollars

[AnyLoveIsGoodLove]

Have you heard anything about a new Rush CD....I've only heard rumors about a 2002 release date.....

Steve

Re:Not every device is worth billions of dollars

[Anonymous Coward]

I fucking hate Rush...

Re:Not every device is worth billions of dollars

[Anonymous Coward]

Woah....

Is'nt that how record companies do it?
Pure evil if you ask me

-B

Re:Not every device is worth billions of dollars

[RichN]

Dang! I heard it was this fall. They must have pussed it back...

I don't know whether to laugh or to cry

[Zen Mastuh]

From the article (emphasis added in italics...):

The Mark: David Edmondson
Title: President and COO, RadioShack Corp.
Invested: $30 million
Commitment: Manufactured CueCats and distributed them free at all RadioShack outlets.
Quote: "I went, 'Holy Toledo! This is big.'"

Sorry, Dave...

Re:I don't know whether to laugh or to cry

[Fear the Clam]

Laugh.

This is the same guy who thinks it's a Good Idea to ask for your address if you just want to buy batteries.

Re:I don't know whether to laugh or to cry

[DNS-and-BIND]

Radio Shack, that shining paragon of knowledge that it is...the Cue:Cat was right up their alley.

Re:I don't know whether to laugh or to cry

[geekoid]

haha
So dave thought "I'll invest 30 million in a product that we're going to give away"
I actualy had a money making idea, with experienced management,a business plan, and a succesfull marketing test, but I couldn't find an investor to save my life.
I really just don't understand business

Re:I don't know whether to laugh or to cry

[Anonymous Coward]

You "actualy" had an idea and a "succesfull marketing test," yet you couldn't find any investors to save your life?

Maybe it was 'cause you can't spell to save your life. Learn to fucking read and write "English" before you try your hand at anything more complicated.

Damnit, you people are stupid.

Re:I don't know whether to laugh or to cry

[AndroidCat]

Quote: "I went, 'Holy Toledo! This is big.'"

Umm Dave, it only looks like a marital aid.

Re:I don't know whether to laugh or to cry

[Azghoul]

Someone thought you were insightful? You apparently have no concept of location-based services or using GIS technology to understand where your customers are coming from.

All they ask you for is your zip code around here. Zip = general geographic area. Get a few tens of thousands of customers' zip codes, and poof, you have a nice map of where your customers come from.

What good is this? Take said map, find the places where there are a lot of customers and no Your Store, and poof, you have a pretty good idea where to build your next one.

That cat thing was dodgy to be sure, but don't knock geography. :)

Re:I don't know whether to laugh or to cry

[Anonymous Coward]

I believe the poster was whoring for a Funny mod, not an Insightful.. goes to show what a sense of humor the moderators have. HAHAHAHAHHA!

Re:I don't know whether to laugh or to cry

[Anonymous Coward]

Can I have your zip code so I can tell where my customers are coming from? Hmmm...lets see, I have a brick and mortar shop here and everyone's zip code seems to be from......right here. Imagine that.

Re:I don't know whether to laugh or to cry

[Anonymous Coward]

I know how you feel. I worked for a small startup (not a dotcom) that had a product that had some good reviews and some (few) happy customers.

We sucked at marketing, but we knew that, and had partnership agreements that were supposed to compensate. Turned out our partners sucked too, but didn't know it. There were a couple of times we almost got bought for decent amounts of money, but it didn't work out. In the end the company folded.

30 million would have kept us going for *years*.

Faster than the Cue Cat's downfall

[Grape Shasta]

D Magazine: From Zero to Slashdotted in seconds!

Re:Faster than the Cue Cat's downfall

[Cato the Elder]

An article with some similar information is available here and not slashdotted yet.

I almost feel bad for them.

[dave-fu]

It must feel pretty bad to be the posterboy for dotcom greed, huh?
On the bright side, we've got the RIAA replacing them on the "Giving Our Customers What They Don't Want And Suing Them When They Reject It" front. Unfortunately, they've got some a stable business model backing the inane business plan for what will likely end up being an infinite amount of time.

Re:I almost feel bad for them.

[AndroidCat]

Don't forget their god-given* right to hack into people's computer and remove anything they think is a copyright violation, and to mount DoS attacks as well.

That's okay, I think it's okay to shoot eBurglers.

* The god is this case is probably one of those Aztec ones involving heart surgery. (Well, it sort of looks like heart surgery -- from a distance.)

Yeah, look at Rambus

[zerofoo]

Just ask any Rambus shareholder if suing everyone on the planet is the way to increase shareholder value.

Linux support of the Cue Cat

[Grape Shasta]

I think if this had only been released sooner, the Cue Cat could've made it financially. Hopefully other companies will learn from this the perils of ignoring the Linux userbase!

Re:Linux support of the Cue Cat

[fishlet]

With the linux user base being notorious for not spending a dime, their concentrating on linux would have only brought them down faster

Re:Linux support of the Cue Cat

[zangdesign]

A useless product connected to a Linux system is just as useless as a useless product connected to a Windows system.

Re:Linux support of the Cue Cat

[AndroidCat]

They didn't have to support the Linux user base -- they just had to not sue the people who did provide support. ("Argh .. must control .. +3 cell phone .. of lawyer .. summoning..") Their corporate culture obviously had a few defects in its DNA.

Odd really, lots of companies would be pleased if someone wrote software to support their product, especially if it didn't cost them a cent.

Look at LEGO, pleased as spiked punch! It only got sticky when legal trademark stuff got involved, and they were very polite about it.

The Cue-Cat failure doesn't puzzle me -- Amazon's continued survival, now that puzzles me!

Re:Linux support of the Cue Cat

[Your Login Here]

Odd really, lots of companies would be pleased if someone wrote software to support their product, especially if it didn't cost them a cent.

The problem was that the linux software was usefull for much more than the windows software. Their entire business plan (and I use that term loosely) was based on the idea of charging advertisers to use the barcodes. They lose money on each CueCat they give away, if the CueCat's have some other purpose than reading barcodes in adds then they stand to lose a _lot_ of money.

The truely frightening thing is that these investors fell for such a bad idea... if it's really this easy to get 2 million from Steve Forbes you'd think he'd be broke by now.

Re:Linux support of the Cue Cat

[Ziviyr]

Press Ctrl-H for intelligence test ...

Hey, cool. In IE it brings up a web history list, this'll save me alot of time, THANKS!

Great Quotes!

[Dr Caleb]

From the article:

Philyaw is a self-proclaimed "luminary figure in the world of direct marketing."

An executive of Coca-Cola said listening to Philyaw made him feel like his hair was on fire. --June 27, 2001, Wall Street Journal
"It fails to solve a problem which never existed." --Debbie Barham, The Evening Standard
"Are these folks kidding?" --Sandra Brown Kelly, Roanoke Times & World News
"You have to wonder about a business plan based on the notion that people want to interact with a soda can." --Jeff Salkowski, Chicago Tribune

Was this the "Edsel" of the Internet age or what!

Re:Great Quotes!

[Accipiter]

Personally, I liked this one:

• 
  "...not every project has a 100 percent success rate."
  

Well, if their plan was to get people into Radio Shack to take home a CueCat, they succeeded admirably. I have eight of them in a box in my closet.

Of course, their marketing effort failed miserably, considering they're going to be looking for "Robert April", "Christopher Pike", or "William Riker".

Re:Great Quotes!

[sharkey]

Was this the "Edsel" of the Internet age or what!

Or possibly the Avanti or the Torpedo.

Re:Great Quotes!

[technos]

Hey now! No making fun of the Avanti on my watch..

I still think that car was cute.

:Snake:Oil

[Anonymous Coward]

subject says it all

It's not THAT bad...

[SamMichaels]

The CueCat isn't THAT bad...Using CatNip, my business now has free barcode scanners. Thanks Digital Convergence :)

Re:It's not THAT bad...

[yakfacts]

Many, many free CueCat readers were written, but most were pulled under threat of lawsuit from DC.

Re:It's not THAT bad...

[elmegil]

But if you saved a copy, you now have a free barcode scanner with no worries. In fact, I'd be REALLY surprised if you couldn't find copies of most of them out there now, given the lack of a threat that D::C now poses.

Re:It's not THAT bad...

[Roblimo]

The threats were silly. OSDN got some cease and desists from Digital Convergence about posting Cue:Cat hacking instructions on Slashdot and some of the bar code reader programs hosted on SourceForge.

Our lawyers and I looked at the whole thing (one lawyer got a Cue:Cat because of a Forbes subscription, no less), we talked about it, and in the end we farted it off.

In essence, these people were sending unsolicited out by mail, then trying to control how recipients used them. Try taking *that* one to court!

Hell, we figured 80% of the things were probably thrown away, and the comparatively few Slashdot and/or SourceForge readers who did something *useful* with theirs wouldn't make a noticeable dent in the world's Cue:Cat (over)supply, but might save a little landfill space.

- Robin

Re:It's not THAT bad...

[Ziviyr]

Hell, I even wrote one. In ARexx! If you have an Amiga emulation that needs to read barcodes you know who to ask now. ;-)

Who's to complain about free hardware?

[jcpii]

I, personally, am happy to have had the chance to see one of my _life's ambitions_ filled... Thanks to Mr. Philyaw, I now own a bar code scanner to catalog my music with.

I spent months trying to find a reasonably priced scanner, and eventually I gave up. But shortly there after, a trip to the local Radio Shack fixed that problem. I consider it a fair deal after all the times I've overpaid for items at that place, that I get a little something back.

Re:Who's to complain about free hardware?

[Delirium Tremens]

You wouldn't mind sharing the details on how you do this, would you?

Preferably with something along the "rpm -Uvh" line...

Re:Who's to complain about free hardware?

[Ranger]

Thanks to Mr. Philyaw, I now own a bar code scanner to catalog my music with.

Ditto. I cut the trace on my CueCat, thus disabling the serial number, and, wala, I too have a free barcode scanner. Since it's inline with the keyboard, the input from the barcode will be dumped into any window opened for editing. So you can dump raw barcode into, say, Notepad. Most of the barcodes I tried worked.

Re:Who's to complain about free hardware?

[Ranger]

The details on hacking (with lots of pictures) the cuecat can be found at this URL:

http://www.i-hacked.com/cuecat/

Unfortunately, I haven't had an opportunity to play with my cuecat under Linux, yet. I discovered that the output from the cuecat going into any editing window by accident. I suspect it will treat the data the same under Linux as if it were coming from the keyboard.

I did a google search using the keywords javascript and cuecat to find webpages that could look up UPC and ISBN barcodes.

Question

[ocie]

"listening to Philyaw made him feel like his hair was on fire"

Being an engineering type and not a marketing type, does having ones hair set on fire represent a good thing?

Re:Question

[sharkey]

does having ones hair set on fire represent a good thing?

Seemed to work for Pepsi. Or was it Coca-Cola? Go ask Michael Jackson to find out for sure.

Re:Question

[hexdef6]

Qba'g or n fgngvfg! Nanepub-pncvgnyvfz vf orfg.

Re:Question

[Anonymous Coward]

Bu cyrnfr, pbecbengvbaf ner nzbeny ng orfg naq qba'g ercerfrag gur crbcyr.

Re:Question

[TheGratefulNet]

michael jackson?

wasn't that richard pryor?

oh, nevermind...

Re:Question

[Anonymous Coward]

Pryor got burned on Coke.

Jackson got burned on Pepsi.

Re:Question

[Anonymous Coward]

Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wagh'nagl fhtagn.

Re:Question

[droleary]

Look, if I were to say I was CEO because some daft VC tossed $20 million my way, they'd put me away!

V'q ebg13 gung, ohg abobql'f tbvat gb ernq guvf qrrc.

Re:Question

[Anonymous Coward]

We're talking rot13, not Klingon you mooron.

Re:Question

[Anonymous Coward]

I hear that they both support the Ignited Negro College Fund...

I love it when Greed goofs!

[Fantastic Lad]

Every once in a long, long while, some greedy & manipulative dickhead fails in his/her schemes in such a way that lots of Joe-normals profit with very little effort.

A bar-code reader in every pot! Though, this is just the beginning; it is worth noting that Evil dickheads learn from their mistakes as well, albeit in a fashion limited to the question of money/power accruement.

--Mind you, if you are ruthless and savvy enough, you can surf the evils of society with very little effort. Life is good for those who have learned the 'way'.

Like porn and condoms, somebody with his/her head set to the right frequency will only pay a pittance, (if anything) for their bar code readers. Or cars. Or food. Etc.

Knowledge is power! Ignorance and Obsession are the only things standing in your way.

-Fantastic Lad

Forbes sent out 800,000?

[Phrogz]

Describing "The Suckers", the article says:

The Mark: Steve Forbes
Title: Publisher, Forbes
Invested: At least $2 million
Commitment: Sent more than 800,000 subscribers CueCat and software.

I had no idea so many had been distributed. I know there have been lots of geek applications developed for those who picked them up free at RadioShack (people who WANTED them) but nearly 800,000 people got them that perhaps didn't want them?

I wonder what they all did with them...

Re:Forbes sent out 800,000?

[John Jorsett]

I wonder what they all did with them...


Well, I took a look at mine, thought, "What the hell am I supposed to do with this?" and it's been living in my closet ever since. I keep it just because it's such an interesting artifact of a nutty era, and because I may one day want a barcode scanner for some reason. I'm a techie, not your usual trust-fund baby or CEO reader of Forbes, so I presume most of the rest of the readers pitched them within seconds.

Re:Forbes sent out 800,000?

[Anonymous Coward]

Gave them to their geek sons. Well, that's what my dad did anyway.

Re:Forbes sent out 800,000?

[slardy]

Forbes sent out close to a million, but they were only one company that distributed these devices. Wired also sent out one of these to their subscribers. Radio Shack proboly distributed millions in their stores also. And I'm sure there are many more companys who did the same. Just the other day I ordered and a free USB cue cat from IBM's site. Do I need it? No. But why not take it for free? I may find some use for it in the future. Thats proboly the line of thinking for a lot of geeks who never throw anything away, including the Cat. But what about all the other people who received them in the mail? Most Cats proboly never made it past the kitchen garbage can.

Personally I would like to see someone come up with an alternative casing for the Cue:Cats, the whole "mouse" idea is pretty lame. I'd like just a plain old off white or black box. It would be great for a small buisness, school, or hobbiest who doesnt want to shell out the cash for a commercial product.

Re:Forbes sent out 800,000?

[Howie]

The part about the CueCat that amused me was that in thepack you got from Radio Shack (sent to me in the UK by a friend - hi Bob!), there was a subscription offer for Forbes, and some other magazine I don't remember. To get the offer, you go to a website, and type in a 10 digit number - you don't do it by scanning a barcode. If you do use your Great New Idea, then who the hell else is going to?

Re:Forbes sent out 800,000?

[broody]

I wonder what they all did with them...

My sister keeps her's on top of her desk because she thinks it is cute. *shudders* She never installed any software for it though.

Re:Forbes sent out 800,000?

[Anonymous Coward]

Mine sits in a snakes head on my windowsill. Heck! I can't claim credit for THAT! My kids did it!

ac

Solving a need

[bhny]

The basic question when you have a new product is-"what need is this solving?"

This was a device to enable people to see more advertising.

yes that's what i want, more advertising!

The cue-cat is my favorite useless invention of the dot.com bubble

Cue::Cat

[The Diver]

I have one but never hooked it up. I'm waiting on the death of Digital:Convergence to be able to use it without fear of a lawsuit.

Re:Cue::Cat

[ncc74656]

I'm waiting on the death of Digital:Convergence to be able to use it without fear of a lawsuit.

For some reason, I'm under the impression that DC has bigger things to worry about right now than whether a geek somewhere is bypassing their lame-ass software to do something that's actually useful with a CueCat.

(FWIW, I never opened the package with the CD. I located a Win2K driver that makes it behave like a normal barcode scanner. It's not a particularly accurate device, though, and attempts I've made at printing barcodes and scanning them back in have been somewhat less than a resounding success...maybe plain paper isn't reflective enough for it. As a result, it mainly sits idle.)

Anyone get the last page? Here is most of it...

[cymen]

"The Dumbest Invention in the History of Computers"

The CueCat was Dallas born and Dallas bred, and it was Dallas' biggest
contribution to the Internet Bubble.

By Glenna Whitley

On Sept. 6, Belo finally ran up the white flag. In a small story on the front
page of the business section, the Morning News announced it was giving up on a
promotion it had hyped more than the paper's recent redesign: a device dubbed
"CueCat" that read bar codes implanted in stories in the News and on sister TV
station WFAA. Invented and distributed by Dallas-based Digital Convergence,
CueCat was supposed to help consumers jump from print to Web without the pesky
trouble of typing. About as useful as an automatic page turner, CueCat's
pointlessness was obvious to everyone, it seems, but the investors who backed
it and the editors and producers who promoted it relentlessly. The game was up
in May when Digital Convergence fired most of its 225-person workforce. Belo
soldiered on for three months-apparently too embarrassed to back down-before
announcing that, in the words of one spokesman, "not every project has a 100
percent success rate."

The Huckster

By Glenna Whitley

Salesman: Jovan Philyaw
Title: Chairman and CEO, Digital Convergence
Bio: Philyaw is a self-proclaimed "luminary figure in the world of direct
marketing." The Digital Convergence web site boasts his past successes,
generating more than $4 billion in business-to-consumer sales for companies
such as QVC, Fingerhut, Home Shopping Network, and National Media. In addition
to Tripledge wiper blades, which supposedly sold $50 million in less than 36
months, Philyaw was the driving force behind Susan Powter ("Stop the
Insanity!") and 1-800-Be-A-Geek, the alias of Internet America, the Internet
service provider whose billboards once blanketed Dallas. He's also the host and
executive producer of Net Talk Live!, which started as a local radio and
television show and is now broadcast on the Web. Digital Convergence invented,
owned, and promoted the CueCat.
Stake: 49.77 percent of Digital Convergence stock
Raised: $185 million
Commitment: To raise and spend more than $300 million to distribute some 50
million CueCat scanners free by the end of 2001, giving consumers a way to get
to web pages without typing in URLs.
Observations: An executive of Coca-Cola said listening to Philyaw made him feel
like his hair was on fire. -June 27, 2001, Wall Street Journal
Huckster Quote: "God loves me twice. Once to give me talent, and twice to grant
me the wisdom to apply it."

The Suckers

By Glenna Whitley

Jovan Philyaw found easy marks among a few Old Media types desperate to play the
New Media game and a certain local retailer desperate to cash in on the
high-tech boom.

The Mark: Robert W. Decherd
Title: Chairman, president, and CEO, Belo
Invested: $37.5 million for 7 percent ownership
Commitment: Mailed more than 360,000 free CueCats to households in North Texas
counties. Began using the technology at the Morning News, several other
newspapers, TV stations, and its many Internet sites.
Quote: "This is not the time for retrenchment. This is a time for well-managed
entrepreneurism, for calculated risk-taking .... It's clearly the time to stay
the course, and soon we will find the path to profitability that consumers are
telling us is there."

The Mark: Steve Forbes
Title: Publisher, Forbes
Invested: At least $2 million
Commitment: Sent more than 800,000 subscribers CueCat and software.
Quote: "[The CueCat] will change the way you use the Internet forever."

The Mark: David Edmondson
Title: President and COO, RadioShack Corp.
Invested: $30 million
Commitment: Manufactured CueCats and distributed them free at all RadioShack
outlets.
Quote: "I went, 'Holy Toledo! This is big.'"

AND MORE WERE BORN EVERY MINUTE...
Mark A. Dacey, president of Adweek magazines, was so "impressed by the
limitless marketing opportunities of the technology" (his words) that he sent
CueCats to all Adweek subscribers... Michael Dolan, chairman of WPP Group,
Young & Rubicam said, "If you haven't seen [Philyaw], it's worth the price of
admission." For Dolan, admission cost $28 million... Bob Guccione Jr. intended
to make his Gear Magazine "the first 100 percent wired magazine by way of the
CueCat"... Meanwhile, David G. Whalen, president and CEO of A.T. Cross,
invested $6 million on a Cross Convergence pen ($90) that not only wrote, but
also conveniently swiped bar codes for the pen owner who happened to be near a
computer and connected to the Internet-and who couldn't type.

Re:Anyone get the last page? Here is most of it...

[Anonymous Coward]

you filthy karma whore you!

Re:Anyone get the last page? Here is most of it...

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually my karma is maxed so I could give a damn... Sometimes it is nice to be able to read the article when the site gets slashdoted. Thanks for playing though!

Brain fartism..

[CoolVibe]

I swear to $DEITY that I read Sue:Cat instead of Cue:Cat at first when I saw the headline...

Weird.. After I blinked it went back to normal though.

If you throw away the software ...

[URSpider]

... the scanner is not half bad! We took a couple of them apart at work, and it seems like they could be made for about $5. I'd bet there are a lot of people and businesses out there that could use a sub-$10 bar code scanner, even if it's just to inventory their CD and book collections. Bundle it with a Linux distribution and some open-source point of sale software, and you have a $10 sales terminal (PC not included). Of course, that's assuming that :CueCat didn't exhaust the market by giving these things away for free...

Infomercials

[Accipiter]

Anyone remember those dumb-ass infomercials that Digital Convergence ran during the CueCat's inception days?

They were set in a classroom something like 200 years in the future. The teacher was telling the class about the wonderful beginnings of "convergence" - the era in human history (heh) that saw the merging of barcodes with the internet. It changed human existence forever, and made the world a happier place. The kids were asking questions like "What happened before 'convergence'?"

"Ha Ha, silly little student...They had to TYPE their URLs in...By HAND!"

The actual quote was something like "a long time ago, people had to get around on the Net by typing in each individual character of a Web address manually!"

Future's gonna be a bit different than expected, eh Jovan?

They had another infomercial with angels ranking the CueCat up there with the wheel and fire, but for the sake of good taste, I won't go there.

Re:Infomercials

[Skuld-Chan]

I never saw the ad, but this is all right along the same lines as every other bad idea.com where the business plan was - think of a piece of crap - put it online - try to make money - one of my most favorite ideas (now long since gone) was eappraisal.com (might have been eprailsel.com) and eantiques.com - both of which were antique appraisal companies.

Didn't these guys watch the antique roadshow? Did they really expect people to send in antiques to be appraised?

Re:Infomercials

[erc]

"A keyboard! How quaint!"

I invested $300 Million in Digital Convergence

[Anonymous Coward]

and all I got was this lousy marital aid. Sorry, someone had to say it...

It never passed the "Wife Test" (tm)

[shreak]

All technology has to pass the "Wife Test"(tm) even if it's Open Source.

True Story:

[Wife is in office finishing up finances with Quicken]

[Enter Husband with "great" idea]

Husband: Hey, hon! Look at this stupid thing I just got from Wired. I found some software on the internet that will let us hack it to scan stuff and record the UPC codes.

[Wife's productive work preempted by husband interrupt. Wife visibly reworking priority tables while "listening"]

Wife: So?

Husband: Well, when we go grocery shopping we can scan all the stuff before we put it away and maintain an inventory so we know how much stuff we have and .... nevermind.

Re:It never passed the "Wife Test" (tm)

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh, that kind of "Wife Test". I thought you were just referring to the "marital aid" aspects of it.

CueCat is brilliant compared to their other ideas

[Anonymous Coward]

People always talk about how dumb the CueCat was. Did you guys notice these idiots' other thing, CUETV?!?!?

Here's their proposition:

You pick up this free cable and software from Radio Shack. (yes, they didn't learn from the cuecat debacle)

You bring your computer out of your study and set it up next to your TV (or TV next to your computer) and plug the audio out of your TV to the audio in of your computer using said cable.

Install crazy software on your PC.

Dial up your PC to the internet.

Tune your TV to NBC, and wait....

When a "CueTV Enhanced" commercial plays, at the end of the ad ther is a jarring burst of static. WHOA! My PC just went to the webpage for that ad! THIS IS SO WORTH ALL THE TROUBLE! GOD BLESS DIGITAL CONVERGENCE, THOSE MORONS!

Yes, NBC actually fell for this, for about a month or so this summer (I think June or July) they were broadcasting ads and other stuff with these annoying bursts of static that the CueTV software would pick up and decode and cause your browser to go to certain URLs. That was just about the same time D:C laid off all employees and folded up. It took NBC a few weeks to clean their programming up to get rid of the CueTV pollution after that.

Here's the URL that proves that as ridiculous as this sounds, I'm not making this up.


CueTV! Yay!

The last page: The Reviews

[Phrogz]

"It fails to solve a problem which never existed." --Debbie Barham, The Evening Standard
"Are these folks kidding?" --Sandra Brown Kelly, Roanoke Times & World News
"There's not enough benefit to the reader," says Jack Powers, director of the International Informatics Institute. "What's Forbes' proposition? 'Jerk around with your computer wiring and learn how to scan like a supermarket clerk so that we can send you more advertising.' No thanks." --Russell Shaw, Broadcasting & Cable
"...There's no need for it." --Sunday Times, London
"My first reaction upon receiving a complimentary "cat" from Wired: Why do I need this?" --Dave Plotnikoff, San Jose Mercury News
"You have to wonder about a business plan based on the notion that people want to interact with a soda can." --Jeff Salkowski, Chicago Tribune
"Just when you think the money truck has stopped making its rounds--that just any bunch of idiots can't get funded anymore--here comes Digital Convergence Corp., proving that small-timers with small ideas can still convince fools to part with their money." --David Coursey, ZDNet News
"Scanning bar codes in my apartment was a thrill for maybe 15 minutes, after which I decided I had better things to do with my time." --Edward Baig, USA Today
"Now I realized that CueCat did indeed have a use. It's for those times when you are 1) sitting by your computer 2) reading Forbes and 3) feeling an overwhelming sorrow that Forbes advertisers aren't getting enough attention. One swipe with the CueCat and you get another ad! Is America a great country or what?" --John Dorschner, Miami Herald
"The CueCat isn't worth installing and using, even though it's free." --Walter S. Mossberg, Wall Street Journal
"The CueCat is one of those clever gewgaws that would be brilliant if only it performed some useful function. But it doesn't."
--Richard Des Ruisseaux, Louisville Courier-Journal
"The CueCat is a cheapo bar-code scanner that looks like a marital aid." --Leander Kahney, Wired
"As I installed my CueCat, I found myself marveling at the weird assumptions that underpin the whole thing. Do we really need another tool to help us go to web sites? How hard is it to type in URLs, anyway? And for God's sake, who wants to be tethered to a computer while they read a magazine? What planet did these people come from?...The tool is almost impressively useless."
--Clive Thompson, Newsday

Re:The last page: The Reviews

[Technician]

I first saw them ad figured this is a mistake. I contacted Radio Shack and Symbol regarding the limited usefullness of the product. I let Digital Convergance know I already had a bar code scanner. What would be wrong with putting the URL in things with a regular extended 3 of 9 barcode? Wouldn't more people connect and use the scanner if they could also be used for other things? If my mouse could be used on one web page and not for any other program like word processing and spreadsheets, I probably wouldn't have a mouse connected. The same thing applies to a single puropse bar code scanner. They got greedy and wanted every scan to belong to them. It backfired as nobody had a reason to connect them. Giving out scanners and having a website with good content linked to the media may have been useful. (scan your coupon here, or scan for a rebate here) Magazines could serial number coupons in a magazine and this may increase magazine sales if you needed to scan a magazine to get an offer listed on a website. The Radio Shack catalog was a good use of the technology, but it was incompatible with my laser scanner. I didn't want to connect another harder to use scanner just to use the catalog. Online orders could have been easy. View more details by scanning the catalog (done). Fill out order by scanning in needed items (missed). Fill out your shipping info by scanning your shipping label (missed). Typos could have been eliminated from online ordering, but due to the DC software, this type of activity could not be done. All scans wanted to launch a new browser window, or take your browser to another web page. It could not be used to fill out an online form.

Re:The last page: The Reviews

[Anonymous Coward]

I just don't get it. You can copy and paste and get modded to 5. You post an unpopular (but well thought out) opinion and you get modded to nothing. I guess karma whoring rules around here

I remember back when i thought it was a neat idea.

[motherhead]

A friend of mine was showing me his new quecat, it was sent to him with a Wired subscription. I had asked him what it was good for. he told me me that at the moment not a whole lot, but then mentioned, "ever open up some ancient pentium system and see some old Seagate or Western Digital that has no model number or jumper settings, but it has a little bar code sticker? Wouldn't it be cool to just scan it and have the device page up in seconds?"

"Heh." I remember thinking, I thought that might be a cool little technology stunt.

but that never happened, what happened was they tried to re-educate me on how to watch TV and read a Magazine... hahahahahaha. No, thank you.

G'bye Que...

awww

[Anonymous Coward]

little trolls and their little pissing match.

so cute...

Sounds familiar...

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah I worked for a company like that. They figured that if they could get a bunch of IPO money they could expand exponentially and make even more money. Grand theory except for the fact that they had a practically non-existant sales department. When suddenly all the contracts started drying up and nobody was calling them anymore they couldn't figure out what to do.

The tremendous irony of said company is that now after all of that they are probably right back where they started from if not slightly worse off. And now they have just one less financial option to work with if they want to grow in the future (not that I see this as being at all likely given the quality of management that got them there in the first place).

Re:Sounds familiar...

[bteeter]

Wow. This sounds amazingly familiar to a consulting company I used to work for. They did the same thing. Hire like mad, pimp themselves to VC's and all of a sudden the contracts all dried up. Out of the 70 or so employees, only 6-8 were billing. Of those, 3 were working for a client who wasn't paying its bills. Fortunately, I was one of the other 5 - but still. You could just tell we were going nowhere REAL fast.

Needless to say, I made haste and got out of there.

Lucky for me, this was more than a year ago, so there were still plenty of jobs to be had. If I were in the same situation now, I'd be worried. There are not nearly as many opportunities, and tons of H1-B Visa holders who will take work for 1/3 of what I would rather than go back to their home country.

Take care,

Brian

Clic Here Now for 100% Linux Web Hosting...

Edmondson on Millionaire...

[Anonymous Coward]

I picture Mr. Edmondson sitting accross from Regis...

Edmondson: I'm sure it's a big thing

Regis: Are you sure you don't want to use a life line? You've got all three left?

Edmondson: Nah, I'm sure Cue Cat is it!

Regis: Is that your final answer?

Edmondson: Final answer.

Regis: Ohhhhh, I'm sorry, it wasn't Cue Cat. You leave today with only $100. Not even enough to cover your air fare. Thanks for playing!

CueCat meet hammer, hammer eat CueCat

[F34nor]

I had fun with mine. First I smashed it with a hammer, then I user the two little red LED's to make eyes for my Handspring. ITS ALIVE! I put some watch batteries in the empty springboard slot holder.

The second one got turned into a pen holder. Empty guts fill with hot glue and bolt it back together with a pen in it. It's cute and comfortable and you don't really want to chew an eraser that sticks out of a cat's ass.

If you use Be0S you can hack em to read any barcode and download barcode fonts, send barcodes to you friends, pay less at the store!

-F34nor

Re:CueCat meet hammer, hammer eat CueCat

[TrinSF]

Oooo! Two dot-com layoffs ago, my coworkers and I read one day that our CueCats (thoughtfully provided by Forbes and other magazines) didn't actually *belong* to us --- D:C was making a big stink about how the User Agreement specified that the Cat remained the property of D:C, blah blah blah.

Someone mentioned that saying equating ownership of a thing with the power to destroy it, and off we went. Since no one was actually *using* the Cats, we took a couple out back and uh, exerted our ownership control over them.

Pleasantly enough, the CueCat cord is long enough to really get some momentum going, if you swing the Cat around a bit. Then it's just a matter of introducing the Cat to the pavement, wall, or other object. Rinse and repeat.

We also ran over them, and used the remaining cords to lash things together, as I remember. Funny, D:C may have own the Cats, but no one from D:C attended the funerals or anything....

I don't get it.

[po_boy]

What's all this talk about no one using the Cue::Cat? I was just sitting here watching a video on Betamax, drinking an RC cola, and scanning stuff with my Cue::Cat. It seems pretty useful and timely to me!

Re:I don't get it.

[tregoweth]

RC? Don't you mean New Coke?

Re:I don't get it.

[Galvatron]

Yeah, RC is good, and they still make it too. They just don't advertise.

just think....

[Cinematique]

...if the investors were to have paid off a handful of college student loans or paid their way through college.

maybe one or two out of the thousands that they could have financially supported could have, someday, thought of something much more useful to mankind.

i like those odds better than the whole idea of the cuecat in general.

Interesting uses?

[zerOnIne]

i've got a pile of :cue:cats floating around my apartment, most of them with the encryption bypassed with a little solder (thanks to directions from some Flying Butt Monkeys)...

my question is, is anyone really doing something *USEFUL* with these little buggers?... after the initial thoughts of "hey it's cool that i've got a bar-code wedge on my pc now!", i basically didn't use it for anything... i've heard lots of interesting ideas for uses, but what real-world applications have been implemented with them?

Re:Interesting uses?

[Anonymous Coward]

I used mine to organize electronic parts.

Electronics is one of my hobbies, but it's hard to keep track of thousands of tiny components. So one day I realized that all the parts arrive in bags with barcodes on them. I set up a database and scanned the barcodes as components arrived, allowing me to track my inventory. If I need a particular part, it's easy to search for it and see how many I have. Then, as the components are used, I can scan the barcode again to keep track of what I'm getting low on.

Thanks DC! ;-)

Re:Interesting uses?

[StaticLimit]

The night "Enterprise" premiered, my TV was still in the garage, and we didn't have cable. My wife and I rushed to assemble a cabinet we got for the TV and hooked it up, but all we got was static.

"We need an antenna!", sez I. But we only had 15 minutes before it started, and where can we find something that will fit into the cable jack on the back and be a long, conductive thing...

We tried an old phone cable, but the wire inside was crap (one tiny strand braided with nylon or some crap), so I pulled out the CueCat... *snip* *snip* *strip* and I had a wire that fit right in, a long cord to act like an antenna... and a little cat-scanner-thing to set on top of the TV, which happened to be the position that gave us the best reception.

- StaticLimit

Re:Interesting uses?

[Talsan]

I work in the housing department at a university in Chicago, and I created move in cards with barcodes instead of student IDs. This way we were able to scan the barcodes to confirm when students arrived rather than counting the cards by hand. --It made things much easier.

The radio station is also setting up a database and wants to use some to help maintain their inventory.

Even failures can be useful!

You All Suck

[Anonymous Coward]

or , "CueCat is Dead, and You Killed it".

Suppose I had a small business selling, say, picture frames. And my business model depended on advertising, namely by distributing piles of several hundred fliers each at several dozen kiosk sites around my town, available for the public to pick up without cost.

Now, a few self-righteous geeks gets wind of this and tell all their friends, "hey, look! These MORONS are just GIVING AWAY the ideal PAPER AIRPLANE material!! Come and get it! HAHAHAHA!"

My return on advertising investment disappears, my business model is wrecked, and my employees are out of a job. Thanks.

Now, maybe you don't like the fact that the CueCat's primary goal was to direct eyeballs to advertising, and maybe the guys who started it were dot-bomb dummys, but that doesn't make the attitude that many of you seem to hold ("I can take free shit from stupid people!") any more ethical.

Re:You All Suck

[Todd Knarr]

Is this a problem with the public, or simply a failure of your business model? Nobody ever offered you a guarantee that your customers would do exactly what you wanted them to do, after all.

Something businesspeople forget: implementing a stupid business plan on the business owner's part does not imply an obligation to insure he succeeds on the customer's part.

Re:You All Suck

[technos]

I can take free shit from stupid people!

Don't think about it like that. We're just reinforcing the millenia old rule that says 'If your product costs $25 to make, don't sell it to the public for a hair under $40 or you deserve the lynching your creditors are going to give you.'

Re:I remember back when i thought it was a neat id

[pHDNgell]

Actually, it was pretty close. With contributions to my ``kittycode'' project, it's possible to pull up books at Amazon by ISBN, and other products by UPC if you've got a place that'll give you info by UPC. Look here.

No Stupider than other late computer companies

[UltraBot2K1]

Okay, so we all knew Cue:Cat was a stupid idea. But there were plenty of stupider ideas. In the recently burst tech bubble, *everyone* was getting VC funding.

I've personally know of several even more ridiculous concepts that have received funding. Here are some of my (least) favorites:

• MyExtremeFuneral.com - This was a company that planned to profit from the demises of dot-com executives involved in extreme sports. They resold life-insurance at inflated prices and custom pre-designed funerals. In addition, one of their selling points was that they'd maintain a web-page/shrine to the deceased in perpetuity. Unfortunately(ha!) they laid off their 250(!) workers and went under 1 month after their $12 million first round funding came through.
  
• KittyLitterCorner.com - Yes, they sell (*sold*) just what you'd guess from their name -- but they did it over the internet! And they were there first, which earned them close to $20 mil in VC funding. KLC.com is no longer with us, needless to say.
  
• PHuMAss.com - Phumass (Personal Human Assistant) catered to the busy e-business executive with real, living, human assistants -- accessible via the web. Forget your PDA, with PHuMAss, you have a real live person (stationed in a cubicle in South Texas) to assist you, take care of your schedule, do your errands, etc.; all accessible through a convenient CGI interface anywhere you have a web connection; all for $299.95/month. RIP Phumass.
  
• VA Linux Systems - Rode the Linux bubble up with one of the biggest IPOs in history. Sold off their core money-maker (the hardware business) and instead acquired liabilities such as various linux-oriented community sites. Plans to make its money by selling a piece of software that can be downloaded free from the web. VA is currently on the verge of being delisted, and bankruptcy may soon follow.
  

These are just some of the cases I was personally involved in (I do due diligence for investment banks). As you can see, Cue:Cat is not that anomolous.

Re:No Stupider than other late computer companies

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, I know about the first 3, but you've *got* to be making the last one up - certainly no VC would finance a company like that!

Re:No Stupider than other late computer companies

[RelliK]

VA Linux Systems - Rode the Linux bubble up with one of the biggest IPOs in history. Sold off their core money-maker (the hardware business) and instead acquired liabilities such as various linux-oriented community sites. Plans to make its money by selling a piece of software that can be downloaded free from the web. VA is currently on the verge of being delisted, and bankruptcy may soon follow.

Almost right but you reversed the order. They bought Slashdot et al a long time ago. They stopped selling hardware fairly recently. Turns out anyone can build an x86 box. Even Dell.

Re:No Stupider than other late computer companies

[ajm]

PHuMAss should have done the smart thing and employed convicts to be personal digital assistants. That way they could have paid them next to nothing and made larger profits. In fact, by recasting the work as training in useful skills they could probably have got money from the state/government to pay for the people as well as charging the customers. If the scheme takes off just use some of your profits to lobby for increased hacking penalties and you'll be assured of an endless supply of workers.

Re:No Stupider than other late computer companies

[sllort]

More info about the personal human assistant concept available here.

You know, those companies bombed so hard, it's hard to find any trace of them anymore. Thanks for the update.

Re:No Stupider than other late computer companies

[technos]

I take it you've never owned a Dell?

Re:No Stupider than other late computer companies

[willith]

I'd be suspicious about investing in a company whose name could be mispronounced "fume-ass".

Re:CueCat is brilliant compared to their other ide

[jms]

Here's an excerpt from the CueTV FAQ

Question: Why would you be using your computer and television at the same time.

Answer: You are probably watching a television program, and surfing the web during commercials.

Question: Why would I want to install CueTV?

Answer: After installing the CueTV software, you won't be able to use your computer during commercials,
because the software will keep interrupting what you are doing to send you to advertising sites.

Cool Software using it...

[s88]

Anyone know of some cool sofware programs utilizing this hardware. I collected a bunch of the from various RSs and never got around to writting anything useful.
I'm aware of the book database...how about a CD inventory..now that would be useful.

Scott

Who invited that gold-plated idiot?

[fm6]

Ah, but why are the VC people throwing money at you in the first place? It's because management realized they'd never get rich running a 10-employee company. It's much easier to get rich running a big company -- even if the company never makes any money!

Shush!

[drinkypoo]

I was hoping they'd bring out a new Cue:Cat that was one of the gun-type barcode scanners. Then again, my mind recoils when I try to figure out what the trigger would look like.

Re:Suckers

[Anonymous Coward]

Leviticus 10:11 And all that have not fins and scales in the seas...they shall be even an abomination unto you
Leviticus 18:22 Thou shalt not lie with mankind, as with womankind: it is abomination

Hrmmm....

Good use for scanner, maybe not CueCat

[Pope]

After my Maxtor HD crashed and I lost most of my CD catalogue, I had a decent idea:
Instead of putting every single CD into my computer, having the computer read the TOC and get the info from the CDDB or CDIndex, then ejecting it and repeating til I'm done (I have 600+ Audio CDs), why not just scan the damn UPC? Think how much faster that would work!

However, every single goddamn online CD database refuses to include the insanely useful YEAR field, and that just pisses me off.

What's really scary...

[Pollux]

the cue cat has to be one of the top five symbols of the dot-com era

I should have gotten one from Radio Shack. Not only would it have been free, but I could have probably sold it ten years from know on eBay for hundreds of dollars, when everyone else, who was too dumb to see it's true potential as a collector's item, threw it away.

Re:What's really scary...

[egburr]

I've got an extra one, still in its unopened bag. If you want it, I'll sell it to you for $50 now. If your prediction is right, you'll still make a good profit off it. :)

someone needs to *tell* Radio Shack

[hawk]

THe one by me is *still* trying to give them away . . .

hawk

Re:someone needs to *tell* Radio Shack

[Anonymous DWord]

I'll take one if you've got an extra. I never found any in Canada.

Re:someone needs to *tell* Radio Shack

[schon]

The one by me is *still* trying to give them away . . .

Pick up a couple for me! I'm in Canada, and I've never seen 'em..

I'll pay shipping, plus $5 for your time.

Re:someone needs to *tell* Radio Shack

[jesser]

Same experience here. I was at a Radio Shack on Saturday, buying floppy disks. As I was leaving, my brother noticed something that looked like a computer mouse but was shaped to look like a cat. I noticed that it had a colon on it, and realized out loud that it was the cuecat Slashdot is always talking about. (I didn't know the cuecat was shaped like a cat!) Someone working the store mentioned that it was free, but I didn't take one.

Re:someone needs to *tell* Radio Shack

[AndroidCat]

Heh, I was cleaning up my download dumping ground yesterday, and wiped the CueCat rogue software. I have too many tech-toys looking for a purpose as it is. :^)

Perhaps cataloging my books might be a use, but I know what books I have. What I really need is something to automatically catalog my VCR tapes. I must have almost two copies of each B5 episode. (Niche Product Alert!) Perhaps something could be done with the Closed Captioning info? Hopefully it wouuld be Open Closed Captioning software.

Re:someone needs to *tell* Radio Shack

[Chelloveck]

(Niche Product Alert!) Perhaps something could be done with the Closed Captioning info?

Great! Now, make it so you have to have an Internet connection to use it (to look up the closed-caption text in the online database) and have it record some additional advertising onto the tape. Quick, patent that sucker and call the VCs!

Oh, yeah, I almost forgot... It has to add MacroVision protection to the tapes you made off the air yourself. Time-shifting is okay, but you'd be depriving those poor artists by making additional copies of those tapes.

Re:someone needs to *tell* Radio Shack

[tregoweth]

My local Shaque is (still) selling :CueCat holders that stick to your monitor. And RadioShack.com is still selling this lovely keyboard adaptor for your 'Cat.

Anyone know anywhere you can still get one?

[arete]

And, I do mean one. Anyone take pity on me?

I wasn't really paying attention to /. at the time, don't live in TX, and don't have a subscription to anywhere that gave them away - so I heard about them late.

Re:Anyone know anywhere you can still get one?

[BlueOtto]

www.cuecat.com www.ebay.com search for cuecat

Re:Anyone know anywhere you can still get one?

[helleman]

Ebay is the source for dumping or buying cue cats!

great for teaching java class

[ghoke]

Radio Shack gave me ten of the scanners when I asked for them for my intro java class--and someone had kindly posted a java utility class, which I had my students incorporate into some really cool projects. One kid printed his list of bookmarks on his t-shirt as bar codes and wrote a small applet to browse to a scanned site.

Re:great for teaching java class

[Anonymous Coward]

So if he wanted to go to a web site he frequented he just scanned his shirt...Brilliant Idea!

You know, I had a friend who made a hanging pot for a plant out of a bra; maybe he and your student could get together to get that cold fusion thing going...

I cannot find a better way to catalogue

[Archfeld]

my library. The title, author and publisher is on the bar code, I scan and file, so much better than typing in the 6000 or so books I've collected over the last 20 years. An online index makes it easier to use all around.

Re:I cannot find a better way to catalogue

[dsb3]

There's nothing wrong with scanners.

If you want to scan your library I expect you want something to take to the bookshelf, not something that you carry your bookshelf to...

I've gotten good results from the Symbol CS200
link although with it is a little limited on memory for extended inventory (350 item memory) and while I never had enough time to get the RS232 interface to run under Linux they provide enough documentation on the API that I'd hope it's be a breeze if you had a few hours to spare.

UPC codes are good. End-user access to UPC databases is also good. Both of these don't diminish in my mind the fact that CueCat is bad.

Re:I cannot find a better way to catalogue

[lostindenver]

Can you tell me Where Access to A UPC database Is? I would Love to do this to my books that have Barcodes.

Re:I cannot find a better way to catalogue

[Anonymous Coward]

I've put up some Java code that will access Amazon.com for books. Some programming required. ;)

Re:I cannot find a better way to catalogue

[plover]

I use this URL
http://www.deBarcode.com/deBarcode/cgi-bin/deBarco de.cgi?barcode=%s&type=U.P.C.%%20A
(where you replace the %s with the UPC-A) to translate my UPC-A barcodes to product info.

However, if you're trying to get "book" information, you don't want to use the UPC at all. You want to use the ISBN, which is encoded in the "Bookland EAN" found on most books. (It's the other barcode, not the UPC barcode.)

Amazon.com makes a very effective ISBN to book catalog database. This URL
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/%s/
does a great job for me.

(Note, that the Bookland EAN is not the ISBN number straight up: you need to decode it. Strip the leading "978" from the EAN, then the last digit of the EAN (the check digit.) You're left with nine digits. Compute the ISBN check digit, and append it to these nine digits, and you're good to go.)

John

Top five symbols.

[big.ears]

My personal top 5 favorite stupid ideas of the dot.com era:

• The CueCat
  
• Internet Time (A new universal time metric. Each 'beat' was about 80 seconds long, if I remember correctly. It was even on the titlebar of CNN.com for a while.
  
• Push technology, incarnations 1, 2, and 3.
  
• Voice-over-IP.
  
• Portals.
  

Re:Top five symbols.

[johnstewart]

I agree with all but voice over IP.

This is technology that's not just useful, but *inevitable*.

Granted, voice over *Internet* may suck significantly, but our main PBX internally is a Cisco IP Phone system.

Works great. All sorts of whizbang features (XML enabled LCD display, for one), and no more seperate voice cabling to run! (and the phones have got integrated switches so you just plug your PC into the phone and the phone into the wall, no extra wiring needed at all)

Pretty cool, Beavis.

Now, if only the voice mail system we have didn't suck, I'd be a lot happier. But it runs on NT, what can you expect?

But the basic concept of voice over IP is an idea whose time has come.

Re:Top five symbols.

[egburr]

I actually liked the internet time concept. I hate dealing with time zones. One uniform time for the whole world, where the time is exactly the same everywhere, is a great idea. The biggest problem is that the time zone concept is very well entrenched and probably won't be dislodged until we populate space to such a degree that the Earth population is only a small fraction of the human population.

Re:Top five symbols.

[erc]

Uh, there *is* - it's called UTC, and it's been around forever...

Re:Top five symbols.

[egburr]

Yeah, but nobody uses it either. At least, not in everyday life.

Re:Top five symbols.

[grytpype]

It's called UTC. Aviation uses it all the time.

Re:Top five symbols.

[erc]

Hey, voice-over-IP is great! I signed up with Blue Kiwi - they offer flat rate long distance service anywhere in the "lower 48" for $35/month - no per-minute charges, no call restrictions. I've had them for several months, and have been amazed at the voice quality, especially when I found out it was all VoIP!

Re:Top five symbols.

[erc]

Every UNIX box in places where they do daylight savings time should have their hardware clock set to UTC - resetting the clock for DST becomes a thing of the past. It's STANDARD time all over the world. Anyone who needs to deal with people over one time zone uses it - aviation, radio, even a lot of software that depends on computers being on the same time uses it. It's under the covers of a lot of software these days...

Re:Top five symbols.

[rking]

Lots of people use it. The differences between GMT and UTC are irrelevant so far as everyday life is concerned, so the population of the British Isles for a start, others in that time zone too. Pretty much anyone who needs to use a coordinated international time system, astronomers, pilots, etc.

It isn't routinely used by people outside of the GMT time zone of course, but then any new system you chose to introduce wouldn't even be used by them so that doesn't seem like much of a distinction.

Re:Top five symbols.

[maX_]

I guess you're not a pilot. Every time given to pilots (military, commercial and civil) in briefings, weather charts, NOTAMs, etc are in "ZULU" aka UTC.

Re:Top five symbols.

[istartedi]

X2X "plays", as in P2P, B2B, B2C.

Petfood, people food, pizza, or anything else delivered via Internet interactions that would be more easily and cheaply done via traditional methods. If you like, you can simply substitute the sock puppet as a symbol for this.

Game rooms at the company, despite the fact that every survey, both statistical and anecdotal made it painfully obvious that what most employees really wanted were saner hours and/or more money. Every once in a while I still see pitches from companies bragging about the company game room, so some of them still haven't got the clue.

Stock options I personally had options at 40 for a company that was trading at 60. Company now trades below 5. At least I didn't exercise my options and end up in debt to the IRS.

20-something millionaires For the few who made it, it was great. For the rest of us, we had to put up with all the people who wondered why we weren't millionaires; why we weren't driving Lexi and buying mansions. When the crash came, it actually made a lot of us feel better

Re:Top five symbols.

[djrogers]

Voice-over-IP

Hate to burst your bubble, but VoIP is alive and well. Thousands of corps are saving millions of $$ by running their voice and data traffic side by side. It's not the clunky PC interface software you're probably thinking of though, I'm talking IP hardphones, digital and analog to IP gateways, and PBXs that trunk over IP. Heck, in all likelyhood, on or two of your recent phone calls went over IP and you didn't even know it...

Re:Top five symbols.

[Zeinfeld]

I never heard that Internet time had a 'beat'. I thought it was the ludicrous notion that things took less time in the Internet world. Like I have been doing Web stuff for ten years now. It is still like watching paint dry to see things gegt finished. It took us what? six years to get HTTP 1.1 to RFC.

Push was equaly clueless, make the Web look like the TV, only it won't because there isn't really the bandwidth. People prefer the Web to TV because it is interactive. Interactive means pull, not push. The suits loved push because what they really wanted to do was bombard people with ads and to make the new media look more like the old media they understood.

Voice over IP on the other hand has a real purpose. The current generation is pretty clunky. A modem simply ain't ever going to cut it. But if you have a T1 pipe into your building you can probably send most of your voice data over it without noticeable loss of quality and at zero marginal cost per call.

The real problem with VoIP is the need to connect to the old telco system this is what ENUM is all about.

VoIP on its own is just an arbitrage play. The real value comes from being able to go multi-media so you get voice, video, powerpoint etc. in the same feed, seemlessly integrated with your email messaging system.

Portals were not a bad idea. They have a function. The clueless part was the idea that the portals would be able to extract extortionate monopoly rents from their position. If that was the case the yellow pages would really clean up big, which they do to an extent.

The trully clueless concept I would add to the list is Priceline. At one point the market cap of Priceline was greater than that of all the airlines in the US and Europe combined.

My theory is that fads become big because they tap into some pre-existing ideology that makes the believers in the ideology go 'ahaaaaa' and the rest of us go 'so what?'. So the e-tail fad was driven by the people that think that advertising and taking orders is the major cost of mail order (rather than packaging, shiping and carrying costs for the inventory). The Web would eliminate the costs of mail order Yahooo!.

Push played to the predjudices of self appointed 'mejah' experts'. Internet time to the conceits of the journalists pushing the meme. Portals played to the prejudices of those who thought that they had worked out how to corner the market in cyberspace. Priceline played to the predjudices of people who believe that the only thing that matters is price and the free market is the absolute good.

In each case the fad is ancilliary to the ideology that supports it. The fad is explained to the masses as a means of converting them to the core ideology.

Re:Top five symbols.

[big_hairy_mama]

What, and everybody uses internet time in everyday life?

Re:Top five symbols.

[egriebel]

Thousands of corps are saving millions of $$ by running their voice and data traffic side by side

This may be true for a corporation, but it just isn't cost-effective for a carrier to implement and deploy for it's customers. The calls are cheap, but the VoIP equipment, installation + implementation, manpower, dedicated private data network, network equipment, etc. are what costs big $$$. Not to mention, the cost of standard circuit-switched long distance is aproaching 3 cents per minute range. The original projections for cost savings with VoIP were based on 10-15 c/min.

Re:Top five symbols.

[Lxy]

* Internet Time

This HAD to be one of the biggest jokes of the .com revolution. I remember seeing this on 60 Minutes or a similar show. They started off by asking people what time it was in GMT, and when people didn't know they said "it's time for a better system". They were showing off these stupid "internet time" watches and getting people all excited about it. So, the system that the entire science community runs off of that's deadly accurate "isn't good enough", even though it's just plus or minus hours from your time zone. Nope, we need to create a new system and screw everything up.

Re:Top five symbols.

[RFC959]

"Whizbang", yes. Useful? My experience is that the marginal utility of these things is very low compared to the marginal cost over plain old dumb phones. (I saw my phone at work rebooting yesterday. Honest to Crom rebooting.) But what do I know...my main phone at home is a heavy old red one marked "PROPERTY OF NEW YORK TEL CO".

Either

[Anonymous Coward]

1.) This is an average quality Troll (good enough to get at least 2 people to reply)

or

2.) You're the giantest fucking moron I've seen in weeks

That was dumb

[Anonymous Coward]

You're stupid

Internet age Edsel

[CrazyClimber]

Actually, that would be the Digiscents iSmell. The CueCat is a very, very close second in my book.

A wild guess...

[Anonymous Coward]

I wonder what they all did with them...

Remember all those articles saying how the cue cat looked like a sex toy?

Jovan and Lepre

[Anonymous Coward]

I used to watch Jovan's crappy TV show in Dallas
and once heard him say he was buddies with Don
"Tiny little classified adds" Lepre. What an
asshole.

Try 3Com

[Anonymous Coward]

Now, if only the voice mail system we have didn't suck, I'd be a lot happier. But it runs on NT, what can you expect?

Try 3Com, they have similar IP phones.. the voicemail system runs some flavour of BSD..

Re:Try 3Com

[technos]

Or Avaya/Lucent.. Last I heard, theirs ran a true blue Unix..

Re:Try 3Com

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, a Lucent switch is the last place you can find UNIX the operating system (as opposed to Unix, the specification, or the abstract concept, or whatever)

Or at least that's what the maintenance console said: "Bell Labs System V Release 4 UNIX(tm)"

Add me too please

[Anonymous DWord]

At the risk of getting snail-mail slashdotted (400,000 cuecats in my mailbox?), I'd like to try one out. Never saw them here in Canada.

Why no mention of the hack brouhahas?

[grytpype]

It would have been a cool part of this article if they had mentioned that hackers figured out how the device worked and came up with useful applications for it, only to be met with the DC's ridiculous claims that this somehow violated their rights.

We /.ers are all to familiar with it, but the general public may not be.

Re:Why no mention of the hack brouhahas?

[Anonymous Coward]

What's useful to a hacker and what's useful to the real world are two different things. The number of people that actually managed to do something useful with this device was probably less than 1% of the people who actually received one in the mail, at Radio Shack, from a magazine, what have you.

IMHO, there are a lot better uses for dead trees than writing about the 10 people who actually made it do something worthwhile.

Well, relative to their own worlds.

Whatever ...

Re:Why no mention of the hack brouhahas?

[Anonymous Coward]

Didn't just send ROT-13ed keycodes over the PS/2 port? It wasn't the most resounding hacking feat.of all time. The most interesting part of the story was DC passing gas as if they were going to sue people.

Re:Why no mention of the hack brouhahas?

[Bighund]

I think that the "HandyShopper" Palm app developer has got a desktop version of his list software out now that will actually use a CueCat to grab product UPC's, write the data into the app and it appears on your Palm. Finally, a productive use of the 'Cat.

Re:Why no mention of the hack brouhahas?

[oni]

a desktop version of his list software

his web site makes mention of readerware and that the guy wants $50 for it. that sounds a bit steap. I was thinking this could be the killer app for the cat. If you could scan the bar code on that empty box of Weaties (tm) just before you throw it into the trash, then take you pilot with you to the grocery store and be reminded to pick up a box of Weaties (tm), that would be pretty damn nifty.

if would have to be more accurate than a standard cue cat though I would think.

Voice over IP is unacceptable

[Frank T. Lofaro Jr.]

Voice over IP systems cannot provide the level of reliability of conventional switches. Conventional switches very rarely fail and very rarely (if ever) degrade the qaulity of calls. Look at how much less reliable the Internet is than the phone system. How often do you get "host unreachable" and "connection timed out" compared to "all circuits are busy". Phone switches can't just throw away connection requests, but IP routers can drop packets. Note also, that if a phone goes out, it is often a straightforward and rapid fix, but Internet based stuff often stays down for hours or days. Even Slashdot, which has a dedicated support staff and the help of their hosting company couldn't get it running for hours due to a routing issue.

Circuit switching is the only way to go for voice - it is the only way to get good quality service and reliability at acceptable first-world levels.
Packet switching just doesn't cut it.

With packet switching, you could just get a failed connection attempt "connection timed out" and not know where it is broken (without adding additional infrastructre). Phone switches can tell if the next switch or circuit is dead and it can be dealt with right at the spot of failure, and people aren't left wondering where in the network "cloud" the problem lies and why they can't make a simple phone call"

IP technology is not as tried and tested as phone tech. It never will be - phone tech has a head start and an installed base and it is the right tool for the job.

I would NOT feel comfortable in a place where if I needed to call 911, I had to hope and pray that the Voice-over-IP network wasn't down, and that my call would go through instead of timing out or getting a destination unreachable. I could be dead by the time it is fixed.

Re:Voice over IP is unacceptable

[Anonymous Coward]

For the second time, you idiot...

Internet != IP

Are you really that stupid that you think any phone company in the world is still not running their entire backstage on IP/packet networks? The only places still manually switching are Podunk, Arkansas and the phone museum.

Hell, you can't even get a normal T1 line anymore...most phone companies will hand you a T1 "emulator" connected to an HDSL line.

As for me, I hope and pray than when a tree knocks out a phone line the network will be able to route my 911 call around the damage, instead of getting no tone at all.

Idiot.

Re:Voice over IP is unacceptable

[spudnic]

If I read his reply correctly he said that voice over the Internet sucked, but they use it INTERNALLY on their own lan instead of a standard PBX. If used internally you would have control on all IP based portions of the system so if something did go wrong (which would be pretty unlikely) you can fix it immediately.

Re:Voice over IP is unacceptable

[johnstewart]

Moderators - how is it that my post scores a 1, while a REPLY to my post, from an author that either didn't read or didn't comprehend my post, gets a 2?

Do I need to mention Natalie Portman or something?!?

Re:Voice over IP is unacceptable

[Anonymous Coward]

The person who replied has a relatively high karma that automatically gives them a '2' rating (I believe it's over 25, but may be mistaken).

party lights

[griffjon]

with a bit of a modification (reflecting the light back into the cuecat) they make passable party lights (they daisy chain nicely) for dark rooms.

I used one as a night-light for downstairs (I live in a loft)

These things are great! I got one from every Radio Shack in town, and a few from co-workers with Forbes and Wired subscriptions

I think the distribution numbers are a bit zany. I'd wager that a handful of geeks have 5-10 each from their non-geek friends and co-workers who got 'em in one of their subscriptions.

Coke said WHAT?

[Telek]

One word for you: HYPOCRITES . (good read, go there!)

Re:Coke said WHAT?

[Anonymous Coward]

Hmm, interesting. Looks like I'll need to get a six-pack of Coke to get me through this site ...

top 10

[Anonymous Coward]

That article on cuecat hucksterism has to be one of the top 10 (really well written) exposes on exactly how "bubbly" the internet economy became (arguably, it still is). It had me howling at the keyboard.

Don't give up

[Anonymous Coward]

It tok 23 years for xerox to get off the ground,now noone can live w/o having copies just in case. I can't imagine how the hell one can conduct business w/o copies to allude to, asame with the Cue Cat. It needs a catch on period.

What about Digimarc?

[Talkischeap]

I recieved a Cue Cat quite unexpectedly, from Wired Magazine one day, and never considered hooking it up to my computer, because I like to read my magazines away from my computer.

However, I did use the nifty patch cord that came with the Cue Cat , to go from my computer sound card to my stereo system, so now I can enjoy my MP3's through my quality speakers.

I wonder if some of you are aware of Digimarc?

Quite some time before the Cue Cat marketing blitz, Digimarc gave away a bunch of Intel CMOS cams, if one agreed to test their "Digimarc MediaBridge" technology for a year.

My girlfriend and I signed up, and got our cams, and each month went to their web site and answered questions about our use of their tech.

Before the year was up, the emails stopped coming, and I haven't heard from them for a long time now. Although they still seem to be in business.

I think their idea was a much better one than the Cue Cat, because it used the cam to "see" links embedded into images (a digital watermark of sorts), and the links were quite invisible.

I discovered two drawbacks to this technology, the obvious being, one needs to be reading their magazine next to their computer. And the other was the lighting needed to be strong, and even, for the links to function at all.

When I'm working at my computer the light level varies all the time, and the MediaBridge needed consistant lighting conditions. This I feel, isn't a "real world" tool for those reasons, good idea though.

I don't get it. (...Continued)

[Anonymous Coward]

And when I'm done doing that, I'll pop an 8-track into the radio on my AMC Gremlin and go buy me one of them new-fangled video phones so everyone can watch me answer in my birthday suit when they call and I'm in the shower.

Re:I don't get it. (...Continued)

[RoninM]

You have a telephone in your bathroom? Why?

Anyone ship to the UK

[RobMahan]

Will anyone sell me one of these to the UK - I am curious - we didnt get them over here..

I will pay e-mail me

Cheers

Insightful

[Anonymous Coward]

How the hell is this comment insightful? It's copied verbatim from the article!

Now the ultimate embarassment..

[Anonymous Coward]

"The CueCat is a cheapo bar-code scanner that looks like a marital aid." -Leander Kahney, Wired

.. would be if *modified* cue cats started turning up in adult stores.

Who reads mags in front of the computer?

[Anonymous Coward]

I read mine on the john.

Who mods this as troll?

[Anonymous Coward]

What because he points out VA has a problem?

The analysis is spot on.

radioshacksucks.com out of order...

[Anonymous Coward]

worked a few mins ago, guess it got hacked...

Re:radioshacksucks.com out of order...

[DNS-and-BIND]

Yeah, it was working earlier today, but when I just checked, I got a directory listing when I went to the main page. They're definitely having problems.

Re:radioshacksucks.com out of order...

[tomblackwell]

Their TRS-80 is down.

Real price

[Anonymous Coward]

If you look at the numbers, with over head, it cost about $25 to build each one. I am sure if you subtract the R&D it is more like $5 to $7.

Jerks

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, they just made it tougher for others to pay off their own student loans.

http://biz.yahoo.com/apf/011010/belo_jobs_2.html

Layoffs and wage freezes at Belo. "Slump in advertising revenue" my ASS! Belo wasted 37 million on those little rats, and now their employees get shafted for bad business decisions.

Imagine -- all that money invested in a scanner to point people to more advertising that they don't want to see anyway. Another case of "Let's get advertising money today! Don't worry about tomorrow!"

The "Oooh shiny" syndrome will get you 3 months of advertising dollars -- 6 months if the advertiser isn't paying attention. Then, they reevaluate, realize that their money isn't helping their business, and move in to the next "Oooh shiny" money making scheme.

But, those few months of advertising dollars probably didn't make any one of these publications even half the money they spent to implement the bar codes and produce the content pointed to by the codes.

But I'm not bitter...

Where do you live?

[oni]

All they ask you for is your zip code around here

I live in Augusta, GA and purchased wire tap connectors last Saturday at the radidio shaq in the mall and I was in fact asked for my name.

When I refused the register-guy continued to ring me up but I once encountered an employee (different radio shack tho) who momentarily refused to sell me something equally cheap unless I provided my name. She was evidently new there. Getting back to my story, I usually make a point to complain that I don't like to be asked for my name when I make a $0.50 purchase. Register-guy laughed and said they did promotions and sent catalogs and coupons to customers in the mail.

So, I don't know where you live, but in my neck of the woods they ask for name - not zip - and they admit that they want your name so they can spam you.

Re:Where do you live?

[treellama]

I bought a power outlet multiplier for $2.50 at a Radio Sack near Pittsburgh and the cashier asked for my name. I told her my name was "Ipso Facto".

This obviously didn't tip her off, because after I had to spell it for her, she still asked for my address.

"Do I really need to give you my address to buy this?" I asked. She replied indignantly, "Well, we're supposed to ask!"

sigh

This Reminds Me ...

[PingXao]

This reminds me of a very old skit they did on Saturday Night Live once. They had this Scotch Tape store in a mall - that's all they sold - Scotch Tape. They weren't doing any business and they couldn't figure out why their brilliant idea wasn't working. I don't remember all the dialogue from that skit but the "Scotch Tape Store" concept stayed with me. I see analogies all the time both in meatspace and on the Internet. It's my fundamental acid-test for spotting products and services whose niche is way too small to make it Big Time.

actual use

[hawkeyeerik]

i print out custom barcodes and use my free cuecat (minus their software) to bring up ms access database records.

poof(ter)!

[Anonymous Coward]

poof! poof!
You're a big poofter!

an actual honest-to-g_d use

[Savatte]

I have found the cuecat to be a reliable keyboard extender. I like to lean back and keep the keyboard on my lap, but the standard curly cord provides too much pull. The cuecat's cord is nice and long, without any resistance. Saved me from having to buy an extender.

NO :(

[Anonymous Coward]

Dang! It's gone! Thank goodness I have two of them still. Damn the luck that they're gone. There was all kinds of software support for them. Using a PERL library I wrote a web site for my dept at work that allows us to scan in books and check them in and out - a mini library of sorts... with bardcoding... for free. I'm sorry to see the CueCat go.

Quite Recently

[CaptainZapp]

I read a story in an economy mag about a small/medium company with a gegraphically limited scope, but an attractive product: In essence they have 90% of the Swiss POS card reader market.

During the dot.boom banks approached the CEO and tried to convince him to go public and to distribute the product in the whole European market.

All was ready and set, then after lots of talks and virtually in the last minute, the guy pulled out, because he figured that instead leading his small, but profitable business, he would be dealing in business lunches with share holders and invstors and that didn't appeal to him.

Needless to say that while the bank in question wasn't too happy, he's more then thrilled now, after everything crashed.

Good for him and his employees, I thinkg.

I want one

[Hanno]

I'm in Germany, so I never had the chance to pick one up. If anyone out there has a CueCat that he wants to give away, please contact me. (sockpuppet@hanno.de)

Yeah, I'm cheap. :-)

Re:CueCat is brilliant compared to their other ide

[Ed Avis]

The idea of data interspersed with TV broadcasts was done before. From 1981 to 1986 the BBC did 'telesoftware' where programs for the BBC Micro were transmitted on certain Teletext pages. (The teletext system uses the gap between frames (the flyback period) rather than bursts of static interrupting the picture and sound itself.)

NBC.....

[Anonymous Coward]

my husband works for a local NBC station that had to run special "cue tones" during special stories to "take you there." What a ridiculous thing!!
Talk about mindless

It was REALLY funny to watch, because there was this long delay where the anchor just had to SIT there silent, waiting for the tones.

Free scanner plus 10 bucks!

[LMacG]

Remember when DC's database got hacked? I had used my seldom used Post Office Box address to sign up, and I eventually got a $10 coupon to use at Radio Shack. It made those speaker stands just affordable enough.
--

hehe

[xxpr0nxx]

so thats why i keep finding those things in the bottom of deskdrawers around my office!

quecat

[Anonymous Coward]

I am supprised they didnt blame the failed company on the linux drivers or the de-clawing web site.

Here's an evil thought

[Tassach]

tons of H1-B Visa holders who will take work for 1/3 of what I would rather than go back to their home country

<sarcasm>
Hmmm... the evil unethical voice in my head says to steal a page from the politician's book and use the terrorist scare as an excuse to reduce the number of H1-B's. After all, you can't trust them dar furrinirs. Send 'em all back to Elbonia or Towelheadistan or wherever they come from [maniacal laughter].

</sarcasm>

Gee, it looks like Master Yoda was right: the dark side is easier and more seductive!

Nice to know...

[Schnapple]

..I own one of the dumbest ideas ever.

Personally I lvoe the CueCat

[weslocke]

I use mine constantly to catalog new DVDS (With DVD Profiler... just scan, and it downloads info and cover images from online... took about 15min to catalog about 140 DVDs) and books (With ReaderWare, which uses the ISBN number on the book to pull info from various online retailers.)

One of the most idiotic items ever? Only if you were trying to sell something with it. ;^)

UTC

[Anonymous Coward]

UTC, simple.

Everything I do is UTC, including my paper day planner.

Nobody?

[Anonymous Coward]

Nobody?

How dare you call me "nobody?"

Humbug.

I love my Cue:Cat

[Kraphty]

I still have my Cue:Cat flashlight stuck somewhere around here. The first thing I did with mine when I got it was stick in a blue LED make a nice little flashlight. Very handy now.