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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."
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
as a door stop. It truly changed the way I used the internet... my office is cooler!
Live to Code, Code to Live!
"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!
"History doesn't repeat itself, but it does rhyme." Mark Twain
"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?
JET Program: see Japan, meet intere
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.
-- Give him Head? Be a Beacon? :P)
(If you can't figure out how to E-Mail me, Don't.
All technology has to pass the "Wife Test"(tm) even if it's Open Source.
.... nevermind.
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
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!
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.
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
I take it you've never owned a Dell?
.sig: Now legally binding!