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Revision as of 20:21, 2 November 2011

Computing C‑class Low‑importance

This article is within the scope of WikiProject Computing, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of computers, computing, and information technology on Misplaced Pages. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.ComputingWikipedia:WikiProject ComputingTemplate:WikiProject ComputingComputing C This article has been rated as C-class on Misplaced Pages's content assessment scale. Low This article has been rated as Low-importance on the project's importance scale. This article has been marked as needing an infobox.

Getting a CueCat

Any place you can get one free these days? Superweirdash

Ha. No. Not for the last five years or so. You can get them from eBay for a few bucks, or some other places. If you have an actual use for them, I'd say it's well worth it; traditional barcode readers are still frightfully uncheap. I'm considering fetching one myself to catalog my books. (Oh, and you can sign your comments by writing ~~~~ after your comment. I've done it above for you.) grendel|khan June 29, 2005 20:34 (UTC)

I got mine for free from a RadioShack in Alaska in 2001. They were handing them out, and I knew I didn't need it, but it looked cool :). -Mysekurity 05:09, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

Cleanup?

Is there a particular reason that cleanup was requested? The article seems to flow pretty well for me; what's wrong with it? grendel|khan 03:37, 3 November 2005 (UTC)

I was wondering that myself... Dpbsmith (talk) 13:28, 3 November 2005 (UTC)

Pictures

Do pictures that I have taken of copyrighted devices count as my work? If I want to take a picture of a :CueCat, do I have to tag it as {{fairuse}}, or can I tag it as {{PD-self}}? -Mysekurity 23:29, 23 November 2005 (UTC)

If you make a picture of a car, does the pic belong to you, or to General Motors? There is already a plethora of pictures of eg. gaming consoles and other stuff as {{GFDL}}, so I don't see why {{pd-self}} would be wrong choice here. On another note, do you plan to make a pic of its circuitboard and the sensing element too? --Shaddack 02:30, 24 November 2005 (UTC)

Thanks, and I don't see why not. I guess I'll first take a few pictures of the device itself, then of its parts (I have the PS/2 model) like the plug and others. I kind of want to keep my :CueCat just to laugh at it in a few more years. Maybe I could get another one for cheap, which I'd be willing to dissasemble, just this one has some small significance to me. I'll upload the pictures as soon as I can (and if I forget--not done in a week--feel free to spam my talk page). Thanks again, Mysekurity 03:07, 24 November 2005 (UTC)

Please do. Cuecats go for under ten bucks each after shipping, and way less if those eBay people let you combine shipping. grendel|khan 05:32, 24 November 2005 (UTC)

Sorry it's taking me so long. I think I'm going to order one of these tonight, but will someone walk me through what to take a picture of? I'm not exactly sure what to do once I get it. -Mysekurity 20:41, 27 November 2005 (UTC)

Article Title

Is it possible to rename the article to something like  :CueCat or some lead Unicode character? Similar to how C plus plus was done. 130.156.3.34 20:44, 10 May 2006 (UTC)

• It's not possible, due to technical restrictions. The article title must begin with a capitalized alphabet character or a numerical. Czj 00:18, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

DigitalConvergence

If I'm not mistaken, CueCat was really DigitalConvergence's only claim to fame. As such, and since there was no Misplaced Pages article for DC, I've redirected DigitalConvergence to CueCat, at least until (or if) someone decides to expand on the corp itself. --Czj 23:39, 13 August 2006 (UTC)

There was also another technology CRQ that they developed with a similar premise. You'd hear a tone on TV that sounded like a knock and a musical note and it would somehow send you to a particular website. I don't think that any major advertisers or programs ever employed this, but I'm not sure, nor do I know how it worked (e.g., how it got the TV signal into the software and how it got the URL.)128.195.20.127 23:49, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

Pretty crude, they made a cable with a phono stacking plug on one end and a stereo jack the other to plug into your soundcards line in. I got one with my (unfortunately broken) cuecat and i think i still have it somewhere. Plugwash 16:08, 23 May 2007 (UTC)

NBC launched the CRQ television technology nationally on its Thursday Must See TV lineup during Friends, etc. This technology was an audible barcode that was decoded by the sound card. Quite ingenious. Has anyone even attempted to contact the inventor mentioned within the story?

Hello, I have posetd a discussion topic for separating the Cue Cat record from the Digital Convergence record. Can I get any and all input. Thanks (ProofPlus Professional Researcher 19:23, 2 November 2011 (UTC)) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Proofplus (talk • contribs)

Hobbyists

Aren't there communities of hobbyists that hacked them for other purposes? Or are they used just as a standard barcode reader? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 193.203.200.2 (talk • contribs)

Not as far as I know. I've read about hobbyists who played around with the guts a little bit and got some weird results, but nothing noteworthy or conclusive other than the ability to use it as a bar code scanner. If you've read about anything else though, I'd be interested in taking a look. --stufff 23:38, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

Barcode scanner's as far as the hardware could be pushed. They weren't capable of much more. Apparently some people stripped out most of the hardware apart from the LED, added batteries and a switch, and used it as a flashlight.

What I think is strange is that nothing about hacking them is mentioned in the article. The CueCat is notable for only two things: a bunch of people remember getting them in the mail or getting them free at RadioShack, and a bunch of those people had a lot of fun figuring out how to hack them to get a free UPC scanner. The hacking effort is the notable part from a lot of people's perspective, and it doesn't even get a mention in the article. Maybe someone wants to start here: http://cexx.org/cuecat.htm — Saxifrage ✎ 03:02, 25 December 2006 (UTC)

There are lots of Hacks for the :CueCat not many people knew about :CRQ which was the audio tone cueing system - a few adds had them and if your pc had the software loaded it would cache the tones it heard so you could look up the ad's or special offers 01:20, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

Shape

The article says it's cat shaped, but many thought it looked like something else. // Liftarn

It's obviously cat-shaped in the included picture. For what else could one possibly mistake it? --Lance E Sloan (talk) 15:12, 2 December 2008 (UTC)

For POSSIBLE inclusion and discussion. There were 5 different form factors of the CueCat. Most people knew the tampon shaped looking one because it was the most famous since one million people activated one. But there were a pen, a fob, a keychain, a cell phone attachment and a microsoft mouse version. there are photos and files of these circulating on the net. Shouldn't these be included as well?

Comments? (ProofPlus Professional Researcher 19:26, 2 November 2011 (UTC)) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Proofplus (talk • contribs)

Merger

I've proposed merging Digital Convergence Corporation into this article as it seems unlikely to pick up much more material on its own. -- Earle Martin 16:27, 27 February 2009 (UTC)

Broken Link to Homepage

The homepage link is broken. Might want to fix that. Xe7al (talk) 20:57, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

Cue Cat edits

Here are some important facts that should be added to the Cue cat history page: (more at end)

CueCat and DigitalConvergence, in 2001, won the Top Honors of The Laureate Medal within the Media, Arts and Entertainment category for the Smithsonian/ComputerWorld Honors Program. The "Search for Heroes Program" award title was "Technology Most Likely To Change the World". The award is an technology industry sponsored award and all awards are reviewed and given based on the review of the Top 100 Technology CEO's at the time the award is given. The award established in 1989 was co-sponsored through 2001 by the Smithsonian Institution and was co-founded by ComputerWorld Magazine. The Honors Winners Case Studies are preserved for case study in Archives Center at American History at the Smithsonian and become course work materials for 134 institutions which are actively engaged in the preservation, protection and dissemination of these materials and have been designated Members of the Computerworld Honors Global Archives and Academic Council.

The are the verifing links: http://www.cwhonors.org/ (describes the awarding organization) http://www.cwhonors.org/Search/his_4a.asp?search=&cat=Media&year=2001&Submit2=Search (this is the archive for the award) http://www.cwhonors.org/Search/his_4a_detail.asp?id=4259 (this is the case study) http://www.cwhonors.org/Search/his_3.asp (this is the archive and reviewing universities and the case study can be found in archives there. http://en.wikipedia.org/ComputerWorld_Smithsonian_Award (the award on wiki and top 100 CEO's) http://siris-archives.si.edu/ipac20/ipac.jsp?uri=full=3100001~!140524!0#focus (Smithsonian flies) http://www.cwhonors.org/Search/his_3.asp (verification of 134 instutions and who they are)

Have some concerns of broken links within this record, unnecessary edits and and people undoing factual data.

Any issues with the facts and correctness of this addition to CueCat?

Plan to review here and then submit within a few days if there is no reasonable objection to these facts. (Proofplus (talk) 17:51, 2 November 2011 (UTC))

Thank you for the lift of AutoBlock NEW - DIGITAL CONVERGENCE

Would like to have a discussion here about the separating of the CueCat file from the DigitalConvergence file. That would be DigitalConveregence in the use of NO SPACE between the two words.

DigitalConvergecem the Intellectual Property set, survived the closure of the CueCat version of the project. I see here the two files have been combined. Thus DigitalConvergence points to CueCat. Althought the CueCat record is sparse and fairly inaccurate with broken links, the file of DigitalConvergence should be its own record set.

Up for discussion: The Intellectual Property survived the DigitalConvergence close of operations. DigitalConvergence won awards for it's IP and software - separate and apart from the DEVICE known as Cuecat. CueCat was a device not a company The DigitalConveregence company was an intellectual property set, a database set, and other incarnations of scanning technology, therefore would suggest a breaking apart of the record so they can be properly documents.

As a BUSINESS case study in over 130 Universities and Institutions of Higher Learning, this should be fact enough for the speparations. See my previous links under cuecat discussion to avoid clutter her.

Please provide comments. Thank you for your consdierations (ProofPlus Professional Researcher 19:13, 2 November 2011 (UTC)) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Proofplus (talk • contribs)

If I understand you properly, you believe there should be a separate article on the company, DigitalConvergence. If I'm correct, please provide here some secondary sources indicating notability of the company.--Bbb23 (talk) 20:21, 2 November 2011 (UTC)

Notification to Commentors PREVIOUSLY (ProofPlus Professional Researcher 19:58, 2 November 2011 (UTC))

(ProofPlus Professional Researcher 19:58, 2 November 2011 (UTC)) I have individually contacted each commentor and editor on the cue cat record over the last term to please review my suggestions for the record. Please review my comments and let's have a discussion. Thank you (ProofPlus Professional Researcher 19:58, 2 November 2011 (UTC)) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Proofplus (talk • contribs)

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