CueCat

"Eventually, the widespread availability of barcode scanner smartphone apps made the CueCat's capabilities mostly superfluous". No kidding. My phone will pick up pretty much any bar code or QR code it sees with the camera and offer to display it or open the URL. It's actually impressive how quickly it picks up even tiny/distant codes.

I used one of these long ago to store my media (books and DVDs, primarily) in a database; I used some specialized software that supported UPC readers (including the CueCat). A few years ago I started using Libib (https://www.libib.com/) and you can just take a picture of the barcode and it brings in the ISBN and all the details about the book and keeps it in the app's database.

I wonder how many of these are still lying around somewhere. When I was in college in maybe 2012, I was looking for something in our ACM lounge. Opening a drawer, I was confronted with multiple CueCats! I couldn't believe I recognized them, getting one in the mail (which my dad immediately threw away) was like a buried memory from my childhood.

Square (payments) executed a similar strategy to CueCat when they freely gave away a 3.5mm credit card reader, so you could scan people’s credit card with your phone. That was a successful growth hack and probably a big reason for their ultimate success.

I remember people raving about these things when then came out. I couldn't see what the fuss was about or what problem the CueCat was trying to solve. I'm not surprised that the CueCat came and went faster than the Juicero.

I guess QR codes have taken the place. But it feels very rare to see QR codes in print, other than when at restaurants.

I hadn't considered this before but "QR code" starts with a "cue" sound, which is somewhat amusing overlap.

I remember the commercial for this. It was very dramatic in promoting how CueCat would change the world, but in a sort of cheezy techno-futuristic setting.

Ah yes. That summer I was interning at an aerospace company when my coworker contributed a Linux driver for it. I think I snagged a half dozen of the keyboard variants from RadioShack. It was great for tinkerers because they were dotcom money-subsidized free barcode scanners.