Cue Cat, Part Deux: Rise of the Qyoo

Posted on December 7th, 2009 1:21pm by Jason Heid
Filed under Business, Science&Technology

NBC 5 saw fit to run an infomercial for a smart-phone application called “Qyoo” that’s being touted as the next big thing by an outfit in Uptown.  It reads 2D barcodes off just about anything and can instantaneously link a smart phone to  a website or a video to bring more information to the user. If Qyoo is reminding you of the CueCat, you’re not alone.

The blogger Alexander Muse makes a pretty convincing case that Qyoo isn’t likely to catch on, especially since there are others giving away the same technology for free. Here is a “QR code,” for an earlier Frontburner post, created in less than a minute :

qrcode

By the by, the Channel 5 report says that Qyoo is being designed by a “Brit, a Brain, and Bohemian.” If you watch their video, can you explain to me what makes the Bohemian a Bohemian, besides the fact, maybe, that he’s a young guy with a beard wearing coffee-shop glasses?

5 comments

  1. How funny. That is exactly what I thought when we ran that story last night.

    @ 2:26 pm on December 7, 2009

  2. I’d like to see QRcodes pushed more in the states but not users would have to be retrained. BlackBerry Messeger 5.0 uses these and can resolve other QR codes like links, but it’s not part of the main system yet, to my disappointment.

    @ 3:51 pm on December 7, 2009

  3. I did a semester about 4 years ago in Tokyo and…you guessed it QR codes were already there. They’re really quite useful.

    @ 5:30 pm on December 7, 2009

  4. Looks like Google just got on board with QR codes too:

    http://www.boygeniusreport.com/2009/12/07/google-favorite-places-gives-qr-barcodes-to-businesses/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+TheBoyGeniusReport+(Boy+Genius+Report)&utm_content=Google+Reader

    I’m saying Qyoo is DOA.

    @ 5:31 pm on December 7, 2009

  5. One thing though, QR codes are cool, but ugly. Microsoft’s thing kind of addresses that, but manages a fussy look instead.

    For the record, I did the shape detection part of their thing so I’m probably biased.

    @ 7:43 pm on December 8, 2009

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