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CueCat Patent Granted, Finally
Posted by
timothy
on Thu Oct 30, 2008 12:18 PM
from the you-lose-even-if-you-win dept.
from the you-lose-even-if-you-win dept.
RobertB-DC writes "Who could forget the :CueCat, the amazing device that would bring 'convergence' between the real world and the online marketing Utopia of the late '90s? Belo, the Dallas-based newspaper and TV conglomerate, spent millions of dollars on the project, only to be ridiculed from the start and eventually becoming a sort of poster kitty for the Dot-Com Bust. Well, the device's inventor and chief cheerleader, J. Jovan Philyaw, didn't forget. His patent application, in progress since 1998, has finally been granted. The story comes from a Dallas alternative weekly, since the local Belo paper is still smarting from its $40-million-dollar black eye."
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Maybe I should take advantage of the situation... (Score:2, Funny)
and write the book ":CueCat for Dummies"? I'll be an instant millionaire!
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Ummm....Most authors only get paid if their books actually sell...(Hence the reason JonKatz lives in abject poverty.)
Re:Maybe I should take advantage of the situation. (Score:5, Funny)
Oh no! Are you saying that the book that I read "Writing Dummy Books for Dummies" was inaccurate on how much money I can make?
Parent
Re:Maybe I should take advantage of the situation. (Score:4, Funny)
You should have looked at the book next to it on the shelf, "Reading about Writing Dummy Books for Dummies". It explained in great detail that it's usually a bad idea.
Parent
Schrodenger's cueCat (Score:5, Funny)
So, the cueCat was in a box (the patent office) and its state was unknown for years until someone finally opened the box and looked at it? I can only assume the cueCat was dead, but that assumption probably changed the outcome.
First again?
Re:Schrodenger's cueCat (Score:5, Funny)
First again?
You assumed you were first, and by doing that, you changed the outcome.
Parent
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
I guess the cueCat is out of the bag... You know, I'm glad this is anonymous.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Unfortunately, it's still going to be a few hundred years before a movie such as Ass hits the big screen, or shows like "Ow! My Balls" begin to air on TV.
Until then, you will have to be content with shows where the director cares that you care about Whose ass it is. [wikipedia.org]
I already used this... (Score:2)
Anyone thinking that getting a patent will make a broken concept work is naive.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
A method for interconnecting a user's location to a destination location on a network. The unique information is received at the user's location, which unique information has no associated routing information embedded therein. Network routing information is associated with the received unique information in response to receipt thereof. The user's location is then interconnected to the destination location across the network in accordance with the routing associated therewith in the step of associating.
I smell a patent troll brewing...what better place than in Texas?
I used one (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:I used one (Score:4, Funny)
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
What happens when your Access DB is what needs to be recovered from the backup tapes? What then?
He gets stuck in an infinite loop!
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
Re:I used one (Score:5, Interesting)
I declawed 20 of them one by soldering a jumper that disabled the encryption at the unit. Most of them were easily hacked this way. I've got several still in use as Point of Sale barcode readers at a couple of customers.
In fact I still have about 5 of them in their poly bags in the basement. I had more but fittingly, my cat peed on them.
I cleaned out 5 radioshacks when they were trying to get people to take them.... please take them!
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re: (Score:2)
There's a serious secondary market for those things. I used to work for a used book merchant. We had a half dozen of 'em, and used 'em to scan ISBN bar codes on the books we received for quick cataloging.
You can pick up a "declawed" CueCat for $10. Most better barcode scanners *start* at $60.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
It is worth noting that there are two different basic types of CueCat declawing.
The normal format for the CueCat is a long "encypted" string that contains three pieces of information, A serial number, information about the barcode type, and the raw barcode data.
The first type of declawing merely makes the serial number be a sting of dashes or zeros. This was only really useful with the official software, as the unoffensive drivers that support the CueCat's native format normally ignore the serial number.
The
Brilliant!! (Score:5, Funny)
A barcode scanner at every normal person's PC that "allows" them to view advertisements on products they've already purchased? Count me in!
Re:Brilliant!! (Score:5, Interesting)
The idea would be that you could scan a barcode on an advertisements or articles to get more information on a product. The problem is that you need a special piece of hardware to do what a URL written down on the page could do.
The basic idea isn't without merit, however. In Japan, they use barcode-like codes [wikipedia.org] to encode extra information with advertisements. You could see a product that interests you, use your cell phone camera to take a picture of the code, and then have your phone load up the web site based on the code. The difference here is its more convenient instead of less.
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
You know, that makes me think of the barcode reader Nintendo made for the Gameboy advance:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nintendo_e-Reader [wikipedia.org]
You could buy barcode cards to work with GBA connectivity to open things in Animal Crossing, among other things. It was about as successful as the Que Cat.
Re:Brilliant!! (Score:4, Interesting)
Erm:
http://2d-code.co.uk/qr-code-on-iphone/ [2d-code.co.uk]
http://www.imatrix.lt/default.aspx?page=start [imatrix.lt]
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Have you tried these? They stink out loud, and it's mostly because of the iPhone's camera, specifically the lack of a macro mode. I was completely unable to get a good reading from anything but a 2 ft wide QR code in bright light. And then it took forever to process it.
My ancient (4 year old) Japanese phone recognized QR codes the size of a postage stamp in real time, even in low light. No need to take a photo, you activate the QR code reader, point your phone at it and the application will stop capturi
Re: (Score:2)
It was more then just advertisements in practice. You could order items out of catalogs 'out of the box'.
Much more if you made some changes.
Crap patent (Score:5, Insightful)
Clearly, this one got approved via the Patent Office's rule that "If you can't decipher the run-on sentence, approve the patent".
Yeah, I know the patent rules pretty much require run on sentences, but Claim 1 here is ridiculous even given that.
Best I can tell, Claim 1 covers doing a lookup of a code at a remote site and receiving something like a URL back, then following that URL. The code has to have been received before the user connected to the network.
That is, if I set up a server which returns a redirect for "8972" of http://www.cat.example.com/ [example.com] and "1513" to http://www.dog.example.com/ [example.com] and I send you (via US mail) "8972", which you then enter at my site and get redirected to the cat site, the patented method has been used.
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
> That is, if I set up a server which returns a redirect for "8972" of
> http://www.cat.example.com/ [example.com] and "1513" to
> http://www.dog.example.com/ [example.com] and I send you
> (via US mail) "8972", which you then enter at my site and get
> redirected to the cat site, the patented method has been used.
Are you saying that makeashorterlink.com and tinyurl.com (for example) are infringing on this patent? Holy vague claims, Batman!
Re:Crap patent (Score:4, Funny)
Maybe their business plan is to sue tinyurl?
Parent
A day late and $40 Million Dollars Short (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
I still have a dozen cardboard boxes of them, including all PS/2 revisions and the short-lived USB versions, that I used to test my CueCat driver for Linux (here [myspace.voo.be] if you care about abandonware.)
I didn't get one (Score:5, Funny)
The plastic bag that my copy of Wired came in had a big hole in it when it got to my house. The CueCat was either stolen or it fell out.
Re:I didn't get one (Score:5, Funny)
Perhaps it became self-aware and clawed its way out. Did you ever think of that?
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
Maybe what happened to me happened to a bunch of people, and that's why they started putting it in a separate box.
Still have mine.... (Score:4, Funny)
What do I do with the box of these that a frustrated Radio Shack manager gave me?
I went in asking for one and he told me I can't have one unless I take his entire inventory of them. I ended up with dozens of them.
On a side note, I then went to the bank and asked for a dollar, but they didn't give me a boxful of them... no fair...
Re: (Score:2)
I seriously doubt your local RatShack will have any left. They cleared them out like 7 or 8 years ago.
Still have mine! (Score:3, Funny)
i still have mine (Score:5, Funny)
it looks like a sex toy
all its good for anymore
i guess
i said i guess!
Useful for LibraryThing, actually (Score:3, Interesting)
You can use a Cue Cat for zapping books into LibraryThing [librarything.com], the social book-cataloging site. It's a lot faster than adding everything manually, and it works even if encryption hasn't been disabled.
I bought a USB model for a whopping 10 USD. Then I declawed it by severing the fifth leg from the left on the bottom of the microchip, using a pair of fingernail trimmers (full declawing instructions (pdf) [greyhead.net], scroll down to page 5). It works nicely in Windows and Linux, no drivers, and I can zap pretty much any ba
Ah, CueCat... (Score:2)
An Idea with Potential (Score:4, Interesting)
I understand why and how this idea failed, but I think that it had such a great deal of potential. Not for flashy things like electronics, but for mundane things like office supplies. Rather than digging around Corporate Express's web site or typing in a list of part numbers, how much easier would it be just to use the CueCat on a barcode printed in the catalog? I was kind of disappointed that the worthwhile, vaguely interesting applications for this technology never materialized.
I was actually one of the first to hack it (Score:4, Interesting)
Geez I guess it has been that long. I was one of the first to figure out that it sent a coded mix of letters and numbers with the scanned barcode inside so that it could be hacked to function as a proper barcode scanner. I also was one of the first to get a certified cease and desist letter and a followup call by one of their attorneys.
I still have a bunch of both the serial and USB versions wrapped and new... however now they would actually have proper legal grounds to prosecute so I won't be redistributing my code online again :)
Never thought I'd see :CueCat come up again on the 'ole Internets.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Heh, I actually found an article that explains it from 2000 and I even got a mention in it :)
http://www.securityfocus.com/news/89 [securityfocus.com]
I just found it now googling for what the legal basis was... I had never read it before... so I gotta thank you for making me curious!
JavaScript :CueCat Decoder (Score:2, Informative)
More useful than you might think... (Score:4, Interesting)
A bit anal retentive? Yes, but I could see it being useful for making a record of just about any "collection" you had that already had barcodes on it.
I smell a lawsuit! (Score:3, Interesting)
Hmm. This is the same thing the CompareEverywhere app for Android (G1) does.
http://compare-everywhere.com/ [compare-everywhere.com]
Is the patent broad enough to ace these guys out?
Bringing Back Memories (Score:4, Interesting)
I remember being the first to publish the basic decoder for the CueCat... got a nice little writeup in Wired, which led to a nice little writeup from a Kenyon & Kenyon lawyer in the form of a C&D.
Highlight of my sophomore year in HS: http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=7222&cid=835493 [slashdot.org]
Their patent claim is interesting -- launch a web browser when an item is scanned. Sounds like it shouldn't meet the non-trivial requirement to me, but I'm not in IP law anymore...
Bad Summary (Score:4, Informative)
Finally decrypted mine (Score:4, Informative)
This news prompted me to drag out my two :Cats and decrypt the output on them, so I can finally use them as raw scanners. I dug out the copper trace to pin 10 of the Hyundai IC on both of them and, voila, it outputs raw numeric ASCII data whenever it spies a barcode. I've had archived details on how to do this for years, but never got a round tuit (those tuits are pretty scarce and hard to find in their own right). Turns out I Googled the part number on the PCBs and found several pages detailing the process for that specific PCB.
BIOS settings needed? (Score:3, Informative)
I remember those, when they first came out, they seemed stupid. It solved a problem for an advertiser, but never solved anything for the end user. Doomed to failure.
Plus, in the install instructions, it gave instructions on how to reset your BIOS settings if it wasn't recognized. You expect someone to reset BIOS settings to use something not really useful? Whatever.
we used one at my last place, a 'declawed' one was a useful cheap barcode scanner for books.
Sorry, But I Can't Un-Think This (Score:4, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
A fast way to Tweet "here's what I'm consuming right now".
I can't help but feel that I just made the world a worse place.