
CueCat - chris_wot
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CueCat
======
amped
The CueCat actually has a connection to the Oak Island Money Pit
([http://www.oakislandmoneypit.com/](http://www.oakislandmoneypit.com/)).

The inventor of the CueCat, J. Hutton Pulitzer (formerly J. Jovan Philyaw) is
prominently featured on the tv show The Curse of Oak Island and claims to have
found a "magical" Roman Sword off the island's coast:
[http://www.inquisitr.com/2704626/oak-island-roman-sword-j-
hu...](http://www.inquisitr.com/2704626/oak-island-roman-sword-j-hutton-
pulitzer-jeffrey-jovan-philyaw/)

Factoring that the CueCat lost investors $185M I think it would be fair to say
that it's also a "Money Pit".

------
peckrob
I remember when these first came out. There was a lively small hacker scene
around these, with people "declawing" them so they could be used as regular
keyboard wedge barcode scanners. When Digital Convergence folded, I got my
buddy at Radio Shack to hold aside a bunch for me that were never distributed.
So I had a box of like 15 of these things. I think I still do somewhere.

Around 2004 I was helping out with a first-year science fiction convention and
we needed barcode scanners for the art show and convention store but couldn't
afford to buy really nice ones on a shoestring budget. So we used CueCats.
They're slow compared to the nicer flash scanners, but worked pretty well. :)

Every time I see a QR code, I think of CueCats and wonder if anyone actually
scans them. Seems like that "fad" has started to fade recently.

~~~
eps
> Every time I see a QR code, I think of CueCats and wonder if anyone actually
> scans them.

[http://picturesofpeoplescanningqrcodes.tumblr.com](http://picturesofpeoplescanningqrcodes.tumblr.com)

~~~
theandrewbailey
Am I the only one who doesn't see any pictures, people, scanners, or QR codes?
Or am I not getting the joke, because maybe no one scans QR codes?

~~~
milesokeefe
Yes, that is the joke.

~~~
pen2l
Okay... But to be fair there are valid uses of qr codes. In the last month
I've used them for my vr giggles (easy method for registering your specific vr
set with some certain vr software) and for going in concerts (qr code saved in
iPhone wallet app)

~~~
ColinDabritz
I had a similar reaction. I like the joke the site is making, it's well done.
I had a good laugh the first time I saw it, and I've shared it with friends.
Jokes are often huge exaggerations though.

QR Codes definitely have valid use cases, and I'm wondering if they aren't
also somewhat 'ahead of their time'. They are useful ways to transfer contexts
in the physical world. VR, and especially AR (Augmented Reality), is about
combining the physical world with the digital one.

I'm imagining a future where not very many people "see" QR codes, but rather
have AR devices like we have cellphones now, and they simply see the relevant
content in place over the QR code or similar. I think of use cases like
glancing down the street at a bus stop, seeing live updates of a NCAA bracket
on a poster on the wall, those sorts of things.

I think a lot of the problem with QR codes is simply the friction of using
them. I could see them used much more if you could simply open a website by
literally pointing a phone at them (e.g. without any setup, opening apps).

When we have persistent AR at all times, the friction could be non-existent,
you already see the information in place.

There's also the possibility that location and motion tracking are good enough
that they can always be virtual, but I feel like the real world reference and
'binding' cues are important. We'll see how things unfold.

~~~
WorldMaker
«I think a lot of the problem with QR codes is simply the friction of using
them. I could see them used much more if you could simply open a website by
literally pointing a phone at them (e.g. without any setup, opening apps).»

Partly why about the only case where I've found QR codes particularly useful
is the Xbox One with Kinect. Voice command "Xbox Use a Code" and then hold it
up for the Kinect camera, maybe walk it forward a bit. Not a lot of friction
and Xbox One QR codes almost all mention the "Xbox Use a Code" voice command.
(Remembering the days of the Xbox 360 where nearly every game had at least one
packed in code and you typically just typed them in with the soft keyboard and
your gamepad, the Xbox One QR codes are a genuine improvement if you have a
Kinect, though at this point in the lifecycle pack in codes seem a little less
common and digital only purchases a more common preference for myself.)

------
HillRat
I remember the Digital Convergence guys -- they were actually an infomercial
company who did a show, "Net Talk Live!" (punctuation and all) that was
targeted at the AOL set. Their other product was something called, IIRC,
"Concerto," which was an app that required you to connect your PC's mic-in to
your TV, whereupon you would occasionally hear an ear-blasting squelch of
noise during _Friends_ , and your PC would suddenly send your browser to a
webpage. It wasn't exactly a _graceful_ user experience.

You could argue that they were just too far ahead of curve from an engineering
and core technology perspective -- wavelet fingerprinting techniques and
Shazam were still far in the future -- but I also believe that the CC's
failure is instructive in its own right; by attempting to piggyback on
existing media without recontextualizing their presentation and consumption,
you ended up with a user-hostile experience that added no value for either the
consumer or the creator.

~~~
algorithmsRcool
I'm pretty sure my local tv station WFAA would integrate this into their news
broadcast year ago. After the news anchor would finish their story, they would
pause and you would hear the tone play. If your computer was setup it would
take you to their website to read more about the story.

At least i think i remember this, it was a long time ago.

Edit :

Yep i remembered correctly.

"WFAA is the first TV outlet to introduce the broadcast application, on-air
audio cues that send PCs immediately to relevant pages on the Internet without
consumer intervention..."

[http://adage.com/article/news/cuecat-kindles-
controversy/566...](http://adage.com/article/news/cuecat-kindles-
controversy/56600/)

------
11thEarlOfMar
"fails to solve a problem which never existed."

Yeah, I got one of these in the mail, but couldn't make it work. Also could
never figure out what it was for, really. Saved me some keystrokes in my
browser? Apparently, the value was too skewed towards the advertisers and
marketers, with too little value for consumers to be adopted.

QR code readers are effectively the same thing, as far as I can tell. I never
find myself using those either.

~~~
simonh
At least with QR codes you don't need a special scanner, it doesn't need to be
plugged into anything and you have the scanner (phone) with you all the time.

But I've never used one either.

~~~
ChrisArchitect
But you kind of do, because as far as I know, you need an app. QR codes has
some major promise initially, but it hinged on becoming built into the camera
apps of phones, which never happened, so forget it

~~~
jamiesonbecker
If you're security conscious, you might use QR codes for MFA, i.e.:
[https://userify.com/tour/](https://userify.com/tour/) (scroll down)

but then Red Hat's FreeOTP has a QR code scanner built in. (Google
Authenticator does not and needs a third-party one that wants a ton of
permissions..)

------
edent
I still have my PS/2 version one somewhere. Was a great way to catalogue books
and DVDs back in the day.

Amusing to see some of the same mistakes being made now by Augmented Reality
platforms. If I have to download a proprietary app in order to interact with
your advert, I'm probably not going to bother.

~~~
ohyeshedid
The difference now, as opposed to back then, is the proprietary apps are lead
capture or advertising delivery platforms.

------
rootbear
The CueCat is infamous. Joel Spolsky had a great take on it:

    
    
      http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000037.html
    

Best quote: "The number of dumb things going on here exceeds my limited
ability to grok all at once."

I got one at Radio Shack but never did much with it. I think it went to
recycling some time ago.

~~~
mariodiana
I thought of Joel's article immediately. The funny thing is though that it's
now trivial to have a "CueCat" on your smartphone. In a vague way, it was a
great idea. It was just too far ahead of its time.

------
mrweasel
The "Legacy" section is the interesting part, along with the quote: "You have
to wonder about a business plan based on the notion that people want to
interact with a soda can"

QR codes are still slapped onto everything, but I doubt that they are used
much. It's the same logic, only with phones rather than a dedicated barcode
scanner. Why do manufactures think that people would want to scan QR codes?

~~~
chatmasta
I've had an iPhone for 5 years, an android 3 years before that, and I still
have no idea how I'm supposed to scan a QR code. Does any arbitrary QR reader
app work for every QR code? Is QR scanning natively supported in any way?

~~~
jamiesonbecker
> Does any arbitrary QR reader app work for every QR code?

Yes, basically.

> Is QR scanning natively supported in any way?

No idea for every phone, but not native to Android or IOS AFAIK. Probably
Google Goggles, but that's not built-in usually. We recommend FreeOTP for MFA
at Userify[1] (plug: SSH key management) which has a built-in QR code
scanner/reader, but Google Authenticator needs a specific third-party (and
permission-greedy) app.

1\. [https://userify.com](https://userify.com)

~~~
LyndsySimon
I also use FreeOTP, but be aware that it stores the keys in plaintext.

That was the reason I chose it actually - it gives me a way to encrypt and
back up my codes in one fell swoop - but it is definitely a risk to be aware
of on a rooted device.

------
api
CueCat was funded under one of the late 90s trendy buzz-concepts: media
bridging. The idea was that there would emerge ways of linking new and old
media.

Of course the obvious way was to print a hyperlink, but evidently investors
thought people would rather scan barcodes.

Like many late 90s goofy ideas, it did resurface in a more successful form
later: the QR code. But that had to wait until everyone had a little handheld
smart terminal.

------
empressplay
"The CueCat was invented by J. Jovan Philyaw, who changed his name to J.
Hutton Pulitzer"

This line made opening the wikipedia article more than worthwhile!

~~~
cheiVai0
I just googled "J. Jovan Philyaw", and the first link is a transcript of his
interview. Oh boy

[http://jhuttonpulitzer.blogspot.com/](http://jhuttonpulitzer.blogspot.com/)

------
LyndsySimon
Surely I'm not the only person with a box of these in storage, just in case I
need a bar code reader in the future? :)

------
igravious
Short discussion, 7 years ago:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=720435](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=720435)

------
donatj
I've got a handful of these in a drawer at home. I remember rushing to
RadioShack to get one as a kid with such excitement. Followed by
disappointment that there wasn't much to do with it. I picked the other ones
up at the Goodwill soon after.

My computer at the time if I recall had the big DIN connector instead of PS2
so I had to get a DIN->PS2 and a PS2->DIN connector to put this thing inline
with my keyboard.

------
cenazoic
I got one for free by paying for a lifetime account at LibraryThing. (Don't
know if they still do this - I signed up 7-8 years ago.) Supposed to make
scanning barcoded/ISBNs easier, although Ive never used it. :)

------
TenJack
The creator (Dave Mathews) talking about it on ThisWeekInStartups (2011)
[https://youtu.be/Z8Tczfk1saQ?t=359](https://youtu.be/Z8Tczfk1saQ?t=359)

------
reedum
I have one of these on my desk. I have fought the Linux kernel drivers for it
for far too long and now it is just here as a red light in the night.

------
foobarbecue
Heheh. I have one of these in a box at my parents' house. I had forgotten
entirely about it.

