Retro Tech Tuesday: CueCat

A lot of people say a technology was ahead of its time when things don't work out for it. I know of few inventions that seemed so silly at the time, but only with the passing of a decade made as much sense as the CueCat.

The concept of the Cuecat was to attach a barcode to just about everything. So if you were looking at a sales flyer for example, you could scan the bar code next to an item to learn more about it. All kinds of unique uses were cooked up: you could use bar codes to program your VCR, or to learn more about the major stories in the newspaper.

At the hieght of CueCat mania Radio Shack, a big backer of the device, was even giving them away. There were several reasons the CueCat failed. For one, far fewer people had constant, fast internet connections. The CueCat concept sort of fell apart when you had to wait for your computer to connect via phone modem. And secondly, we were all internet crazy: "Hey, I don't want to scan a barcode to get my information, I want to search the web!"

Yet all these years later, here we are, giddy at the prospect of scanning barcodes with our iPhones, to price shop, make grocery lists, and get information.

Everything old... Here's a look at one of the early intro videos for the device. You should know the late 90's were a big time for floating camera shots. Use Dramamine as needed: