CueCat Barcode Scanner

The CueCat, styled :CueCat with a leading colon, is a cat-shaped handheld barcode reader designed to allow a user to open a link to an Internet URL by scanning a barcode. The devices were given away free to Internet users starting in 2000 by the now-defunct Digital Convergence Corporation.

By year-end 2001, barcodes were no longer distributed for the device, and scanning with the device using its original software no longer yielded results. The CueCat can read several common barcode types, in addition to the proprietary CUE barcodes which had been promoted by Digital Convergence.

Description

The CueCat was named CUE for the unique bar code which the device scanned and CAT as a wordplay on "Keystroke Automation Technology". It enabled a user to open a link to an Internet URL by scanning a barcode — called a "cue" by Digital Convergence — appearing in an article or catalog or on some other printed matter. In this way, a user could be directed to a web page containing related information without having to type in a URL. The company asserted that the ability of the device to direct users to a specific URL, rather than a domain name, was valuable. In addition, television broadcasters could use an audio tone in programs or commercials that, if a TV was connected to a computer via an audio cable, acted as a web address shortcut.

The CueCat was connected to computers in the same way as a keystroke logger, as a "keyboard wedge", interposer PS/2 jack and the motherboard PS/2 port. Because of USB-PS/2 compatibility, USB-PS/2 adapters may be optionally used. A native USB version of the CueCat scanner hardware was also produced, but fewer of them were made before all manufacturing of the hardware was discontinued.

Marketing

The CueCat patents are held by Jeffry Jovan Philyaw, who changed his name to Jovan Hutton Pulitzer after the failure of CueCat. Belo Corporation, parent company of the ''Dallas Morning News'' and owner of many TV stations, invested US$37.5 million in Digital Convergence, RadioShack $30 million, Young & Rubicam $28 million, and Coca-Cola $10 million. Other investors included General Electric, and E. W. Scripps Company. The total amount invested was $185 million.

Each CueCat cost RadioShack about $6.50 to manufacture.

Starting in late 2000 and continuing for about a year, advertisements, special web editions, and editorial content containing CueCat barcodes appeared in many US periodicals, including ''Parade'', ''Forbes'', and ''Wired''. ''The Dallas Morning News'' and other Belo-owned newspapers printed the barcodes next to major articles and regular features like stocks and weather. Commercial publications such as '' Adweek'', ''Brandweek'', and ''Mediaweek'' employed the technology. The CueCat bar codes also appeared in select Verizon Yellow Pages, providing advertisers with a link to additional information.

For a time, RadioShack printed these barcodes in its product catalogs, and distributed CueCat devices through its retail chain to customers at no charge. ''Forbes'' magazine mailed out the first 830,000 CueCats as gifts to their subscribers, since the magazine was starting to print CRQ ("See Our Cue") barcodes in their magazine. ''Wired'' magazine mailed over 500,000 of the free devices as gifts to their subscribers. Each publisher private-branded the CueCat hardware they sent to their mailing list.

Marketing partners

Organizations that used the :CueCat and compatible :CRQ software:

Magazines

* '' Adweek''
* ''Brandweek''
* ''Mediaweek''
* ''MC Magazine''
* ''Forbes''
* ''Wired''
* ''Parade''

Catalogs

* RadioShack

Newspapers

* ''The Dallas Morning News''
* ''Milwaukee Journal Sentinel''
* ''The Providence Journal''
* ''The Press-Enterprise''

Broadcast stations

* WNBC-TV, New York
* KNBC-TV, Los Angeles
* WMAQ-TV, Chicago
* WCAU-TV, Philadelphia
* WFAA, Dallas
* WRC-TV, Washington DC
* WXYZ-TV, Detroit
* KHOU, Houston
* KING-TV/KONG-TV, Seattle
* WFTS, Tampa
* WEWS, Cleveland
* WTVJ, Miami
* KTVK/KASW, Phoenix
* KMOV, St. Louis
* KGW, Portland
* WMAR, Baltimore
* KNSD, San Diego
* WVIT, Hartford
* WCNC, Charlotte
* WNCN, Raleigh
* KSHB, Kansas City
* WCPO, Cincinnati
* WTMJ-TV, Milwaukee
* WCMH, Columbus
* KENS, San Antonio
* WVTM, Birmingham
* WWL, New Orleans
* WVEC, Norfolk
* WPTV, West Palm Beach
* WHAS, Louisville
* WJAR, Providence
* KTNV, Las Vegas
* KMPH, Fresno
* KOTV, Tulsa
* KVUE, Austin
* KMSB/ KTTU Tucson
* KPTM, Omaha
* KREM/KSKN Spokane
* KTVB, Boise

User experience

Installation of software and hardware, configuration, and registration took around an hour. Registration required the user's name, age, and e-mail address, and demanded completion of a lengthy survey with invasive questions about shopping habits, hobbies, and educational level. Then users could scan bar codes on groceries, bar codes on books, and custom bar codes in ads in magazines, newspapers, Verizon Yellow Pages, and RadioShack catalogs. The '':CRQ'' software then used that unique serial number from the device to return a URL which directed the user's browser to the sponsored website. It also created a permanent advertisement-displaying taskbar on the user's computers, and could log the web-surfing habits associated with a user's real name and email address.

Reception

In ''The Wall Street Journal'', Walter Mossberg criticized CueCat: "In order to scan in codes from magazines and newspapers, you have to be reading them in front of your PC. That's unnatural and ridiculous." Mossberg wrote that the device "fails miserably. Using it is just unnatural." He concluded that the CueCat "isn't worth installing and using, even though it's available free of charge". Joel Spolsky, a computer technology reviewer, also criticized the device as "not solving a problem" and characterized the venture as a "feeble business idea".

The CueCat is now widely described as a commercial failure. It was ranked twentieth in "The 25 Worst Tech Products of All Time" by ''PC World'' magazine in 2006. The CueCat's critics said the device was ultimately of little use. Joe Salkowski of the ''Chicago Tribune'' wrote, "You have to wonder about a business plan based on the notion that people want to interact with a soda can", while Debbie Barham of the ''Evening Standard'' quipped that the CueCat "fails to solve a problem which never existed". In December 2009, the popular gadget blog ''Gizmodo'' voted the CueCat the #1 worst invention of the decade of the "2000s". In 2010, ''Time'' magazine included it on a list of "The 50 worst Inventions", adding that people didn't accept "the idea of reading their magazines next to a wired cat-shaped scanner".

The CueCat device was controversial, initially because of privacy concerns about its collection of aggregate user data. Each CueCat has a unique serial number, and users suspected that Digital Convergence could compile a database of all barcodes scanned by a given user and connect it to the user's name and address. For this reason, and because the demographic market targeted by Digital Convergence was unusually tech-savvy, numerous websites arose detailing instructions for "declawing" the CueCat — blocking or encrypting the data it sent to Digital Convergence. Digital Convergence registered the domain "digitaldemographics.com", giving additional credence to privacy concerns about the use of data.

Security breach

According to Internet technologist and Interhack founder Matt Curtin, each scan delivered the product code, the user's ID and the scanner's ID back to Digital Convergence.

The data format was proprietary

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