The CueCat, styled :CueCat with a leading colon, is a cat-shaped handheld

barcode reader A barcode reader is an optical scanner that can read printed barcodes, decode the data contained in the barcode to a computer. Like a flatbed scanner, it consists of a light source, a lens and a light sensor for translating optical impulses into e ...

that was given away free * * * to Internet users starting in 2000 by the now-defunct Digital Convergence Corporation. The CueCat was named CUE for the unique bar code which the device scanned and CAT as a play on "Keystroke Automation Technology" and it enabled a user to open a link to an Internet

URL A Uniform Resource Locator (URL), colloquially termed as a web address, is a reference to a web resource that specifies its location on a computer network and a mechanism for retrieving it. A URL is a specific type of Uniform Resource Identifie ...

by scanning a

barcode A barcode or bar code is a method of representing data in a visual, machine-readable form. Initially, barcodes represented data by varying the widths, spacings and sizes of parallel lines. These barcodes, now commonly referred to as linear or o ...

— 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 enter 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. By year-end 2001, codes were no longer available for the device and scanning with the device no longer yielded results. However, third-party software can decode the lightweight encryption in the device, allowing it to be used as a general-purpose wand-type barcode reader. The CueCat can read several common barcode types, in addition to the proprietary CUE barcodes promoted by Digital Convergence.

Marketing

The CueCat patents are held by Jeffry Jovan Philyaw, who changed his name to

Jovan Hutton Pulitzer Jovan Hutton Pulitzer (self-styled as Commander Pulitzer and formerly Jeffry Jovan Philyaw) is an American entrepreneur and former treasure hunter from Dallas, Texas, known for inventing the widely-criticized CueCat barcode scanner and "kinematic ...

after the failure of CueCat.

Belo Corporation Belo Corporation was a Dallas-based media company that owned 20 commercial broadcasting television stations and three regional 24-hour cable news television channels. The company was previously known as A. H. Belo Corporation after one of the ...

, parent company of the ''

Dallas Morning News ''The Dallas Morning News'' is a daily newspaper serving the Dallas–Fort Worth area of Texas, with an average print circulation of 65,369. It was founded on October 1, 1885 by Alfred Horatio Belo as a satellite publication of the ''Galvesto ...

'' and owner of many TV stations, invested

US$ The United States dollar (symbol: $; code: USD; also abbreviated US$ or U.S. Dollar, to distinguish it from other dollar-denominated currencies; referred to as the dollar, U.S. dollar, American dollar, or colloquially buck) is the official ...

37.5 million in Digital Convergence,

RadioShack RadioShack, formerly RadioShack Corporation, is an American retailer founded in 1921. At its peak in 1999, RadioShack operated over 8,000 worldwide stores named RadioShack or Tandy Electronics in the United States, Mexico, United Kingdom, Austra ...

$30 million,

Young & Rubicam VMLY&R is an American marketing and Marketing communications, communications company specializing in advertising, Digital media, digital and social media, sales promotion, direct marketing and brand identity consulting, formed from the merger of ...

$28 million and

Coca-Cola Coca-Cola, or Coke, is a carbonated soft drink manufactured by the Coca-Cola Company. Originally marketed as a temperance drink and intended as a patent medicine, it was invented in the late 19th century by John Stith Pemberton in Atlanta ...

$10 million. Other investors included

General Electric General Electric Company (GE) is an American multinational conglomerate founded in 1892, and incorporated in New York state and headquartered in Boston. The company operated in sectors including healthcare, aviation, power, renewable energ ...

, and

E. W. Scripps Company The E. W. Scripps Company is an American broadcasting company founded in 1878 as a chain of daily newspapers by Edward Willis "E. W." Scripps and his sister, Ellen Browning Scripps. It was also formerly a media conglomerate. The company is he ...

. 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 U.S. periodicals, including ''Parade'' magazine, ''Forbes'' magazine and ''Wired'' magazine. ''The Dallas Morning News'' and other Belo-owned newspapers added the barcodes next to major articles and regular features like stocks and weather. Commercial publications such as ''

Adweek ''Adweek'' is a weekly American advertising trade publication that was first published in 1979. ''Adweek'' covers creativity, client–agency relationships, global advertising, accounts in review, and new campaigns. During this time, it has cover ...

'', ''

Brandweek ''Brandweek'' is a three-day brand marketing symposium and a part of Adweek, LLC. It was also previously a weekly American marketing trade publication that was published between 1986 and April 2011. Profile Brandweek is a part of Adweek, coverin ...

'' and ''

Mediaweek ''Mediaweek'' is an online trade website serving the Australian media industry. It provides news regarding the Australian newspaper, television, radio, magazine and outdoor advertising Out-of-home (OOH) advertising, also called outdoor adv ...

'' also 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 included 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 ''Forbes'' was starting to use CRQ (See Our Q Codes) in their magazine. ''Wired'' magazine mailed over 500,000 of the free devices as gifts to their subscribers. Each publisher branded the CueCat they sent to their mailing list.

Marketing partners

Organizations that used :CRQ and :CueCat:

Magazines

* ''

'' * ''

'' * ''MC Magazine'' * ''

Forbes ''Forbes'' () is an American business magazine owned by Integrated Whale Media Investments and the Forbes family. Published eight times a year, it features articles on finance, industry, investing, and marketing topics. ''Forbes'' also re ...

'' * ''

Wired ''Wired'' (stylized as ''WIRED'') is a monthly American magazine, published in print and online editions, that focuses on how emerging technologies affect culture, the economy, and politics. Owned by Condé Nast, it is headquartered in San Fra ...

'' * ''

Parade A parade is a procession of people, usually organized along a street, often in costume, and often accompanied by marching bands, float (parade), floats, or sometimes large balloons. Parades are held for a wide range of reasons, but are usually ce ...

Catalogs

Newspapers

* ''

The Dallas Morning News ''The Dallas Morning News'' is a daily newspaper serving the Dallas–Fort Worth area of Texas, with an average print circulation of 65,369. It was founded on October 1, 1885 by Alfred Horatio Belo as a satellite publication of the ''Galvesto ...

'' * ''

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel The ''Milwaukee Journal Sentinel'' is a daily morning broadsheet printed in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, where it is the primary newspaper. It is also the largest newspaper in the state of Wisconsin, where it is widely distributed. It is currently o ...

'' * ''

The Providence Journal ''The Providence Journal'', colloquially known as the ''ProJo'', is a daily newspaper serving the metropolitan area of Providence, Rhode Island, and is the largest newspaper in Rhode Island. The newspaper was first published in 1829. The newspape ...

'' * ''

The Press-Enterprise ''The Press-Enterprise'' is a paid daily newspaper published by Digital First Media that serves the Inland Empire in Southern California. Headquartered in downtown Riverside, California, it is the primary newspaper for Riverside County, with he ...

Broadcast stations

* WNBC New York * KNBC Los Angeles * WMAQ Chicago * WCAU Philadelphia * WFAA Dallas * WRC Washington, DC * WXYZ Detroit * KHOU Houston * KING & KONG 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 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 * CNBC * MSNBC

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 one 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 A taskbar is an element of a graphical user interface which has various purposes. It typically shows which programs are currently running. The specific design and layout of the taskbar varies between individual operating systems, but generally a ...

on the user's computers and could log the web surfing habits associated with a user's real name and e-mail address.

Reception

In ''The Wall Street Journal'',

Walter Mossberg Walter S. Mossberg (born March 27, 1947) is an American technology journalist and moderator. From 1991 through 2013, he was the principal technology columnist for ''The Wall Street Journal''. He also co-founded '' AllThingsD'', ''Recode'' a ...

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 Avram Joel Spolsky (born 1965) is a software engineer and writer. He is the author of ''Joel on Software'', a blog on software development, and the creator of the project management software Trello. He was a Program Manager on the Microsoft Excel ...

, 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 widely described as a commercial failure. It was ranked twentieth in "The 25 Worst Tech Products of All Time" by ''

PC World ''PC World'' (stylized as PCWorld) is a global computer magazine published monthly by IDG. Since 2013, it has been an online only publication. It offers advice on various aspects of PCs and related items, the Internet, and other personal tech ...

'' magazine in 2006. The CueCat's critics said the device was ultimately of little use. Joe Salkowski of the ''

Chicago Tribune The ''Chicago Tribune'' is a daily newspaper based in Chicago, Illinois, United States, owned by Tribune Publishing. Founded in 1847, and formerly self-styled as the "World's Greatest Newspaper" (a slogan for which WGN radio and television ar ...

'' 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 Deborah Ann "Debbie" Barham (20 November 1976 – 20 April 2003) was an English comedy writer who died at the age of 26 of heart failure brought on as a result of anorexia. As well as writing for TV and radio, Barham wrote columns for newspa ...

of the ''

Evening Standard The ''Evening Standard'', formerly ''The Standard'' (1827–1904), also known as the ''London Evening Standard'', is a local free daily newspaper in London, England, published Monday to Friday in tabloid format. In October 2009, after be ...

'' quipped that the CueCat "fails to solve a problem which never existed". In December 2009, the popular gadget blog ''

Gizmodo ''Gizmodo'' ( ) is a design, technology, science and science fiction website. It was originally launched as part of the Gawker Media network run by Nick Denton, and runs on the Kinja platform. ''Gizmodo'' also includes the subsite ''io9'', whic ...

'' voted the CueCat the #1 worst invention of the decade of the "2000s". In 2010, ''

Time Time is the continued sequence of existence and events that occurs in an apparently irreversible succession from the past, through the present, into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequence events, to ...

'' 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 of its collecting of aggregate user data. Each CueCat has a unique

serial number A serial number is a unique identifier assigned incrementally or sequentially to an item, to ''uniquely'' identify it. Serial numbers need not be strictly numerical. They may contain letters and other typographical symbols, or may consist enti ...

, 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 Demography () is the statistical study of populations, especially human beings. Demographic analysis examines and measures the dimensions and dynamics of populations; it can cover whole societies or groups defined by criteria such as edu ...

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 Matt Curtin (born 1973) is a computer scientist and entrepreneur in Columbus, Ohio best known for his work in cryptography and firewall systems. He is the founder of Interhack Corporation, first faculty advisor of Open Source Club at The Ohio ...

, each scan delivers the product code, the user's ID and the scanner's ID back to Digital:Convergence. The data format was

proprietary {{Short pages monitor

Aftermath

Digital Convergence responded to this security breach by sending an email to those affected by the incident claiming that it was correcting this problem and would be offering them a $10 gift certificate to

, an investor in Digital Convergence. The company's response to these

hack Hack may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Games * ''Hack'' (Unix video game), a 1984 roguelike video game * ''.hack'' (video game series), a series of video games by the multimedia franchise ''.hack'' Music * ''Hack'' (album), a 199 ...

s was to assert that users did not own the devices and had no right to modify or

reverse engineer Reverse engineering (also known as backwards engineering or back engineering) is a process or method through which one attempts to understand through deductive reasoning how a previously made device, process, system, or piece of software accompli ...

them. Threats of legal action against the hackers swiftly brought on more controversy and criticism. The company changed the licensing agreement several times, adding explicit restrictions, apparently in response to hacker activity. Hackers argued that the changes did not apply retroactively to devices that had been purchased under older versions of the license, and that the thousands of users who received unsolicited CueCats in the mail had neither agreed to nor were legally bound by the license. No lawsuit was ever brought against "hackers", as this tactic was not employed to go after specific users or the hacker community, but to show "reasonable assertion" that would prevent a corporation from developing integrated software within an operating system or browser which could take over the device and circumvent the CRQ watchdog software and therefore revenue model that Digital Convergence employed. In May 2001, Digital Convergence fired most of its 225-person workforce. In September 2001,

, CueCat investor and owner of newspapers and TV stations, who sent at least 200,000 free CueCats to its readers, wrote off their $37.5 million investment, and stopped using CueCat technology with newspapers's editions, notably,

, and

Investors in CueCat lost their $185 million. Technology journalist

Scott Rosenberg Scott Rosenberg (born April 24, 1963) is an American screenwriter, film producer, and actor. Life and career Rosenberg was born in Needham, Massachusetts, to a Jewish family. After high school graduation in 1981, he attended Boston Universit ...

called the CueCat a " Rube Goldberg contraption", a "massive flop" and a "fiasco".

Awards

In 2001, ''

Computerworld ''Computerworld'' (abbreviated as CW) is an ongoing decades old professional publication which in 2014 "went digital." Its audience is information technology (IT) and business technology professionals, and is available via a publication website ...

'' named CueCat as a Laureate in the Media Arts & Entertainment category. In 2001, ''

Software and Information Industry Association The Software and Information Industry Association (SIIA) is a trade association dedicated to the entertainment, consumer and business software industries. Established in 1984 as the Software Publishers Association (SPA), the SIIA took its new na ...

'' named Digital: Convergence Corp.'s :CRQ Technology as Best Reference Tool.

Surplus liquidation

In June 2005, a liquidator offered two million CueCats for sale at $0.30 each (in quantities of 500,000 or more). Once available for free, the device can now be found on sale at eBay for prices ranging from $5 to as much as $100.

Open source

Hobbyists have reverse-engineered the firmware, software, and the customer database.

Books

Gallery

File:CueCat-inside.jpg File:CueCat-board.jpg File:CueCat-boardbottom.jpg Cuecat2.jpg

References

External links

* *
Scan to Connect Patent Portfolio
*
Dissecting the CueCat

CueCat post mortem
* * {{Barcodes Computing input devices Computer-related introductions in 2000

Marketing

Marketing partners

Magazines

Catalogs

Newspapers

Broadcast stations

User experience

Reception

Security breach

Aftermath

Awards

Surplus liquidation

Open source

Books

Gallery

See also

References

External links