(iverson's) currentbuzz

“An application called ScanLife, widely available online as a free download, turns a phone into a bar-code reader. Versions exist for the iPhone and BlackBerry as well as Android-based handsets, and the app comes preloaded on many Sprint phones in the United States. ScanLife can also read many standard bar codes on many phones, so it can perform price comparisons, for example.” read the whole story at: Smartphones Helping Magazines Become Interactive – NYTimes.com.

Ha ha. Remember the Cuecat? It seems it was not the stupid thing some writers have claimed, but instead it was too far ahead of its time.

Eric Zorn says:

I’m in the minority on this one, but I think the Cue Cat was simply at idea WAY ahead of its time, and that Very Smart Phones and cloud computing will vindicate the notion.

For those who don’t remember, CueCat was a device that was to read bar codes printed in your newspaper that would then open up web pages on your computer. It was cumbersome — wired to your computer and few people read their newspapers at their computer work stations. But what if you just had an app on your phone that would read a bar code and allow you to quickly do things like e-mail an electronic version of the story to a friend, send yourself an email with a link for more information for later, allow you to comment on the story on the web or e-mail the writer of the story, download a supplementary video or audio right to your phone….order a product, buy a ticket, ask a merchant for more information, put something on your “wish list”?

via Change of Subject: And the walls come a tumblin’ down.

Wired Insider – Kooaba.

Ad from Wired. Download App, take camphone photo. See ad. Sooo cuecat.