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CueCat barcode scanner

The CueCat (trademarked :CueCat) was a cat-shaped handheld barcode reader developed in the late 1990s by J. Hutton Pulitzer and his company DigitalConvergence Corporation. The device which connected to computers using the PS/2 keyboard port and later and less commonly, USB. The CueCat enabled a user to direct their web browser to a website for a product by scanning a proprietary patented bar code — called a CueCode™ or "cue" by DigitalConvergence — 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. In addition, to the tethered CueCat device, the software drivers used to operate the CueCat also worked on an Broadcast Audio Signal, TV broadcasters used an Audio CueCode™ (audio tone in programs and/or commercials) that when, attached to a computer (via an audio cable) will instantly direct their computer to the webpage being covered or sponsored by the broadcaster, i.e. remotely controlling the viewers computer through the television broadcast.[1][2]

The CueCat device communicated to desktop "CRQ" software running on Windows 32-bit and Mac OS 9 operating systems. Users were able to register to their zip-code, gender and a valid email address so they could receive specific promotions or coupons related to their scanning activities, if desired. [3] This registration process within the software enabled the device to deliver relevant content to a single or multiple users within a household. The systems that employed this registration process are no longer on the Internet and codes cannot be generated in order for the software to be re-installed today. People wishing to use the device currently can utilize third-party software to decode the lightweight encryption employed within the device.


Introduction

Digital Convergence Corporation
Company typeCorporation
IndustryElectronics
FoundedDallas, Texas (1998)
HeadquartersDallas, Texas
Productsperipheral devices, Software
Number of employees
1,250
Sample CueCat barcode

In order to gain fast and widespread adoption of his invention, Pulitzer's company DigitalConvergence wanted to develop a cheap alternative to scanning. Pulitzer achieved this idea by engaging the support of along his long time sponsor of his Television Talk Series, Net Talk Live! , Radio Shack. Tomo Razmilovicthe former CEO of Symbol Technologies was approached early in the CueCat's development, and readily dismissed the idea for scanning to connect to the web, stating that a scanner could not be made for less than $1000 and given away for free, and that new proprietary forms of barcodes which could be patented could ever be created. Additionally they believed to do such would harm the existing high-end scanner market and in which Technologies was the market leader. The relationship between DigitalConvergence and Symbol became almost immediately adversarial.

Over 1,000,000 Internet users went into their local Radio Shack stores picked up and installed a CueCat within the first 30 days of release making it one of the fastest growing and adopted technologies of all time. Currently, CueCat and its technology have seen a revival almost 10 years after its introduction and 19 years after after Pulitzer’s first test and prototypes, and almost 2000 apps have been developed using CueCat and its scanning capabilities. Those who now use CueCat to scan and run simple apps can utilize third-party software to decode the lightweight encryption employed within the device.[4][5]

In early 2000, advertisements, special web editions and editorial content containing CueCat CueCodes (aka. "cue", CueCode™ or QCode) appeared for more than a year magizines such asParade magazine, Forbes magazine and Wired magazine. The CueCat CueCodes also appeared in select Verizon Yellow Pages, providing advertisers a link to additional information. RadioShack published their product catalogs containing these CueCodes, and even distributed CueCat devices through their retail chain to customers at no charge.[6] Starting in October 2000, The Dallas Morning News and other Belo-owned newspapers added the CueCodes next to major articles (Belo had invested in DigitalConvergence) and regular features like stocks and weather. The mailings of Cuecats were sent to subscribers of various publications and numerous Publishers participated in the launch of the CueCat and which added to the 1,000,000 users of the CueCat device almost immediately. DigitalConvergence provided free CueCats to certain large Publishers and at a reduced cost to smaller publishers. Each publisher was responsible for its own mailings and this mailing was done, due to the books and software in the package at the Media Mail mailing rate offered by the United State Post Office, thus saving millions on Sponsors mailing costs.[7]

Design

The bars on a CueCode are tilted 22.5° to the left, both for proprietary ownership and Trade Dress reasons, to avoid Lemelson parallel barcode patent concerns and as a strategy developed to create a atmosphere of “Willful Infringement” by competitors to the DigitalConvergence and CueCat Technologies. This strategy meant, if CueCats CueCodes were made readable by any device other than the DigitalConvergence approved devices, they would have to hack the internal code and software, proving the use of Digital’s proprietary technology. Such hacking or reverse engineering, would then backfire against a competitor and open them to immediate “Willful Patent Infringement” lawsuits by DigitalConvergence. This patent edge later forced all companies engaged with Scanning to connect to deal and/or license with DigitalConvergence and Pulitzer Patent Portfolio. [8][9]

The company's response to these hacks was to assert that users did not own the devices and had no right to modify or reverse engineer them. Threats of legal action against the hackers swiftly brought on more controversy and criticism. The company's licensing agreement was changed 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 not 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 specifically, 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.[citation needed][clarification needed]

Data

The data format was proprietary, being scrambled so as not to be usable as plain text. However, the CueCode (proprietary barcode) itself somewhat resembled Code 128, and the CueCat was also capable of reading EAN/UPC, ISBN and other symbologies. This intentional design allowed CueCat to become the only scanner in the world at the time to be able to read all existing bar codes, all past types of bar codes and all future types of bar codes yet to be issued. The software for decoding the CueCat's output quickly appeared on the Internet, followed by a plethora of unofficial applications and many of these applications were encouraged by DigitalConvergence before its untimely demise. [10]

:CRQ (a play on "see our cue") is software developed by Digital:Convergence intended to convert "cues" from television signals and the :Cuecat bar code reader into URLs. The television technology was launched on NBC during its "Must See TV" programming and used a computer sound card to decode an audible barcode and collect or launch a web site.

Controversy

At inception and announcement, CueCat, DigitalConvergence and Pulitzer were heralded throughout Wall Street and Hollywood and attracted huge named investors such as Steve Forbes and Steven Spielberg, but when the company closed shop (coming from both the tech world and publishing world combined) CueCat, DigitalConvergence and Pulitzer became heavily reviled.[11][12]Even with Pulitzer being nominated the JD Powers “Entrepreneur of the Year” and attracting a 1,000,000 initial user base the CueCat in its initial concept was branded a commercial failure. It received the dubious distinction as one of "The 25 Worst Tech Products of All Time" according to PC World magazine.[13]

The criticism based at the CueCat was that device was of little use: Jeff 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."[3] In December 2009, the popular gadget blog Gizmodo voted the CueCat the #1 worst invention of the "2000s" decade.[4] [14][15] Now scanning to connect to products, offers and the web are commonplace and available in almost every connected device. Now the idea of this technology of "little use" employees 20,000 globally and has been adopted by consumers, businessess and governments.

Security breach

The CueCat device was controversial, initially because of privacy concerns of its collecting of aggregate user data,[16][17] 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 web sites arose detailing instructions for "declawing" the CueCat — blocking or encrypting the data it sent to Digital Convergence. The site digitaldemographics.com was also registered through Digital Convergence, which also gave credence to privacy concerns about the use of data. The database utilized the unique serial number within each device to determine the viability of deployment through retail, magazine and other distribution partners. Any data collected was aggregated anonymously much like other serialized and identifiable devices such as TiVo have been employing since 1999.

In September 2000, security watchdog website Securitywatch.com notified Digital Convergence of a security vulnerability on the Digital Convergence website that exposed private information about CueCat users. Digital Convergence immediately shut down that part of their website, and their investigation concluded that approximately 140,000 CueCat users who had registered their CueCat were exposed to a breach that revealed their name, email address, age range, gender and zip code. This was not a breach of the main user database itself, but a flat text file used only for reporting purposes that was generated by ColdFusion code that was saved on a publicly available portion of the Digital Convergence web server.

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 Radio Shack.

Accolades

In the year 2000, the Smithsonian - Computerworld Honors Program, in consultation with its Chairmen and Laureates,and in 2001, CueCat, DigitalConvergence and J Hutton Pulitzer,was awarded the coveted Smithsonian – ComputerWorld – “Search For New Heroes Award”.

CueCat, DigitalConvergence and J. Hutton Pulitzer also won the coveted Codie Award. The SIIA CODiE awards recognize excellence in the business software, digital content, and education technology industries. All nominated products and services receive a thorough review from seasoned industry experts who can identify strengths and give significant insights for improvements. In 27 years, SIIA has recognized more than 1,000 companies for achieving greatness in industries that expect innovative thinking and demand market validation.[18]

Continued Availability

The CueCat itself is still being sold on secondary marketplace sites like Amazon and eBay. LibraryThing sells USB CueCats to aid with scanning ISBN barcodes for entering books into the site and a whole community of apps which have developed many uses for the CueCat scanner have appeared over the years. In June 2005, a electronic liquidator purchased at the bankruptcy asset auction the remaining Cuecat un-distributed inventory. The liquidator purchased approximately 2,000,000 CueCats at a price of $20,000 for the entire lot of device (purchasing the device at a liquidated cost of $0.01 cents each) and subsequently the liquidator offered two million CueCats for sale at $0.30 each (in quantities of 500,000 or more). [19] Currently, on eBay, one can purchase a CueCat for an average BUY NOW price of $9.99 and the original sponsored distribution kits, private labeled and mailed to customers by such companies as RadioShack, NBC, Forbes, AdWeek, BrandWeek and others, have started being offered on the Tech Collectors market for as high as $50 for an intact Branded CueCat Offering Kit.

Defunct Company

Digital Convergence and the CueCat system are generally assumed to be defunct, the Digital Convergence website remained as a ghost site. The website has contained the following statement:

The dream was to connect items in the physical world to the Internet, automatically. In January that dream hit a bump in the road and the servers were taken offline. They will scan again… If you have a Cue Cat, save it. The patents and technology created by Digital Convergence will again be available for business and consumer use.

Currently the website contains information about the device, its history and information on the company licensing the resulting intellectual property which numbers more than 115 granted US patents.

Legacy

At the last stages of the CueCat's life DigitalConvergence was in negotiations with Microsoft and others to tie CRQ into Internet Explorer and make Cuecat and CRQ part of the regular Windows and Internet Explorer Operating Systems and Applications. DigitalConvergence’s demise thwarted these efforts, although Pulitzer tried to save the company’s downfall with cash infusion/acquisition negotiations from Microsoft, Intel, Dell and Yahoo. Patents and codes being included in pagers, cellphones, hand held devices, Palm’s, Keyboards, Computer Mice and keychain and fob applications. Lack of funding and the bankruptcy of DigitalConvergence halted the release of these devices and caused the layoff of almost 1,200 people in DigitalConvergence Offices in Dallas, New York City, Los Angeles, London and Hong Kong. Today, Scanning to connect, buy, register or gain information is a common device application and feature. In the years after CueCat, several different technologies have emerged, emulating the goals; ideas and technologies developed by Pulitzer and Digital Convergence. These technologies, popularized by the introduction of CueCat, provide some of the same features for consumer bar code scanning and web-connected interaction. The QR code, [20] seen regularly today almost a decade after CueCat was introduced and Microsoft Tag, [21] introduced in 2009, have been mentioned as modern reinventions of CueCat.

See also

References

  1. ^ CueCat Web site
  2. ^ http://rfrost.people.si.umich.edu/courses/SI110/readings/Privacy/CueCat.pdf]
  3. ^ [1]
  4. ^ [2]
  5. ^ Microsoft tries to reinvent the bar code
  6. ^ [3]
  7. ^ http://adage.com/article/news/nbc-s-fall-lineup-spotlight-web-technology/58071/]
  8. ^ [4]
  9. ^ [5]
  10. ^ [6]
  11. ^ http://adage.com/article/news/nbc-s-fall-lineup-spotlight-web-technology/58071/ NBC's fall lineup to spotlight new Web technology]
  12. ^ [7]
  13. ^ [8]
  14. ^ [9]
  15. ^ CueCat Links Printed Ads to Web, but Skeptics Are Wary
  16. ^ Bennett, Colin J. (2001), Ethics and Information Technology, 3 (3): 195, doi:10.1023/A:1012235815384 {{citation}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)
  17. ^ "Curiosity killed the CueCat", Network Security, 2000 (11): 2, 2000, doi:10.1016/S1353-4858(00)85003-5
  18. ^ [10]
  19. ^ [11]
  20. ^ [12]
  21. ^ [13]
Wikimedia Commons has media related to CueCat.

[[Category:2000 introductions

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