Pair An Orphaned CueCat With Nerd-Toy Arduino & What Do You Get? Barcodes!

Hack a Day has a user-generated how-to for mashing up a CueCat with an Arduino board and making barcode-scanning magic happen.

It's not practical, and it doesn't save time or money but some things are worth doing because they're just weirdly cool.

The iPad meets the CueCat

It had to happen sooner or later. Yes, someone somewhere plugged a CueCat into an iPad.

And it worked!

The CueCat: it's *alive*!!!!

Damn CueCat just won't die. Now after all these years, it's been granted a patent! You gotta be kidding me. Someone's been paying a patent attorney all this time!!

Sh*t. Now I have to update my CueCat post mortem.

Now it's Amazon and the CueCat

Hey, it's raining CueCats. Here's someone else talking about our favorite extinct auto ID kitty.

The CueCat Rides Again

Admittedly I'm a Luddite when it comes to tiny, expensive electronic toys; I never see the point and I hate carrying yet more crap around (plus they always make them so droppable. WHY WOULD YOU MAKE A THREE-HUNDRED DOLLAR CELLPHONE SLIPPERY?).

But it's with an extra jaundiced eye that I read a breathless review of the Groqit. It's tiny! It scans yer stuff! It keeps you from buying yet another copy of Steel Magnolias!














It's also already been done.

Barcodes in Menus?

Most people read about using barcodes in restaurant menus and see some measure of utility in it. It's faster, easier, uses machines instead of people. So goes the logic behind The Deli Touch pen. If that isn't enough, try the video. I can't speak Japanese but it's worth watching just for the end.

Someone says "barcoded menu" and "scanners for all customers" and I hear "prank waiting to happen". How hard can it be to substitute your barcodes for the ones in the menu? Think barcode fonts and Avery laser labels. Take a menu home, scan the barcodes, and figure out what they're doing. Re-do it for them and swap out the menus.

This is from someone who "played with" the CueCat back in the day...