The CueCat allows Web users to jump over content on a site unrelated to what they're looking for. (Greg Ruffing/Daily Kent Stater) |
By Ben Fischer
Daily Kent Stater
Many personal computer experts have said it at least once: Laziness is the mother of creativity.
With that in mind, a Dallas-based Internet company recently launched a new piece of computer hardware they hope will make giant strides toward bringing together print media and electronic information. It's called the CueCat and is shaped like a miniature house cat.
The CueCat, developed by DigitalConvergence.com, reads a specialized barcode. The barcode then instructs your Web browser to go directly to a page within a Web site, eliminating the need to go through several links.
"It eliminates the need for multiple and tiresome clicking," said Peter Eschbaugh, DigitalConvergence.com vice president of communications.
"It enables the reader to jump over content in a Web site that isn't relevant to their particular wishes. Because, you know, some of the bigger sites have several thousand individual pages."
The CueCat is currently available at most RadioShacks, including the franchise near Wal-Mart on state Route 59 in Franklin Township.
For now, the CueCats and installation software is free to all customers, according to store manager Dave Newell.
"Response has been great," he said. "Everyone who comes in for our catalog, I ask them if they want the Cat."
RadioShack's 2001 merchandise catalog is one of the first publications to utilize the CueCat, with Cat-ready barcodes adjacent to every item.
Sweeping the barcode with the CueCat will direct the browser to the ordering page deep within the hierarchy of the RadioShack Web site.
"By the time you actually get to the pertinent information on a Web site, it's a reasonably lengthy URL," Eschbaugh said. "And there are pretty good odds that somewhere in there you'll type a backslash when it should have been a foreslash, or whatever. Who knows what the heck a tilde is anyway?"
Other publications that have jumped on the CueCat advertising campaign include Wired, Forbes, Parade and The Dallas Morning News.
The current Forbes "Best of the Web" issue features the new technology on the cover. Forbes is using the technology in both its editorial content and in advertising.
Eschbaugh concedes that for now, most of the applications benefit corporate advertisers, but as time goes by, the potential uses of the CueCat will be beneficial to private users.
Eschbaugh envisions a world in which every newspaper, magazine and book will include the CueCat technology, instead of merely directing a reader to an opening URL.
Future plans also include television and radio involvement through an audio trigger for the CueCat.
"It can be used in connection with anything - textbooks, online loan applications, anything," he said.
Newell agrees.
"It will be a great thing when it gets more spread out," Newell said. "More and more people are using DSL lines, cable Internet connections, you know, not dial-up connections. So they're connected to the Internet 24 hours a day. Then they can readily connect at any time for more information. Once it gets to that point, it will be a major thing. For now, it's just a convenience."
But Kent State students seem a bit more restrained when introduced to the CueCat.
"I wouldn't call it a major advancement by any stretch of the imagination," fifth-year computer science major Joey Kowalczyk said. "It's a convenience issue, but certainly nothing that stops world wars."
Kowalczyk did admit that most technological advances simply stem from mankind's desire to do less physical labor, but he said use of the CueCat seems especially lazy.
"Somebody's going to find a practical application for it, eventually, I suppose, but for the most part, it's a barcode scanner. We already have those."
Freshman computer information systems major Jeff Baker picked up a free CueCat from RadioShack last week and installed it.
"I think it was easy because it comes with a nice play-by-play CD with a movie that showed you exactly how to install it physically," he said. "The only downside was the movie was lengthy and you still had to physically install it once you were done.
"It's a good marketing idea because it's free. It serves a good informational purpose, but it doesn't rate too high on a scale of usefulness."