The dawn of the 21st century brought us a problem: we had lots of data, but no real way to bring that data into the real world. We could feasibly lug laptops and phones around, but did they ever do exactly what we needed them to do? Don’t answer that.
Manufacturers, in their wisdom, decided to do something about it and so devices like the Peek – for email – and the CueCat – for nothing – were born. Here’s a look at ten ‘avatar’ gadgets, gadgets that brought a web service into the real world, for better or worse.
Twitterpeek – We should be nicer to the Twitterpeek. This standalone device, designed specifically for Twittering, mirroring our own obsession with the microblogging service and, if anything, we willed it into existence with our collective desires for always-on Twitter. Does it work? Eh. Is it a good idea? Eh. Is it for us? Probably not, but what do I know?
Peek Pronto – Now this makes a little more sense. The Peek Pronto is an email-only device. It’s great for business owners who want to give on-the-go email access to their employees without spending hundreds on monthly cellphone charges. The company, in fact, is reaching profitability so all our bellyaching isn’t hurting the company’s bottom line. The Peek Pronto costs $299 for unlimited email, a pretty good deal.
Kindle – The one real success story in this list. Kindles bring Amazon’s electronic book store to a hand-held device. It’s so popular, in fact, that everyone and their dog is getting in on the act. It’s an avatar device simply because it enables offline access to Amazon content.
Nook – This is supposed to be the Kindle on steroids. This is odd because B&N isn’t quite the name synonymous with online book-selling so what they’ve done is a double-reverse Lutz avatarization of their product. They created a device to showcase their web offerings and are now tooling up web offerings for the device.
Zipit – I popped over to the Zipit website and discovered that they’re actually still making these things! Zipit is basically an IM/SMS-only device that costs $49 and lets you send IMs, listen to music, and look at pictures over Wi-Fi. It’s for kids, obviously, and after the initial purchase it costs $29 a year for unlimited text messages and IM messaging. Kind of a good idea if you want to keep your wee ones from dumping a few grand on SMS messages.
IMfree – Now this is a blast from the past: the IMFree. It’s basically like the Zipit, but primitive. It is probably one of the first avatar devices out there with an actual useful purpose.
Augmented Reality Toys – Augmented reality creates ‘holograms’ on your PC screen when your webcam sees a special bar code. This is sort of a reverse-avatar situation where the physical device unlocks on-screen content. Expect to see more of these but Avatar seems to be going whole-hog on these.
ASellerTool and other bar code scanners – Devices like this abomination promise to allow offline pricing of various items like wine, books, and media. Useful for flea markets and the obsessive.
Wikireader – Dream: Hey! Why don’t we stuff an ever-changing information source on a device! Let’s call it the Wikireader! We’ll be rich!
Reality: This thing is a waste of plastic.
Cuecat – The winner of the dumbest avatar device is the Cuecat, a silly bar code reader that was supposed to bring online content to magazines. You’d plug in your Cuecat and scan magazines as you read them. Sadly, even back in 1999, reading your magazines by your PC was a bit silly. The company went belly up and now the Cuecat is remembered as one of the most ridiculous examples of dot-com hubris ever.
The cuecat was a special at radioshack, i remember them making a big deal about it and my mom running out to get one cause she thought it was the coolest. But it was just a bar code scanner, that took you to sites that had that product you scanned on it. I dont ever remember taking it to a magazine and scanning it.
Cuecat had the extra big brothery goodness of sending a serial number (linked to your identifying data) along with each request for information.
I envy your 1337 PhotoShop skillz, John. Am I the only one that wants a Cuecat now?
As I recall, it was possible to hack a Cuecat (actually, it was spelled “:CueCat”, note the leading colon) to turn it into a regular barcode reader. So you might still have use for one, if reading barcodes is something you want to do.
The hack was very easy to do. You just took out a screw, opened it up, and cut a specific pin on a one of the chips. That was it. From that point on, whatever you scanned ended up in your clipboard.
back in 2002, i think, i picked up a pair for 10 bucks on ebay that were modded. they were pretty cool to play with but that’s the extent of it. I never found a use and they’re PS2 so now from time to time i’ll plug it into my docking station at work if i’m too lazy to type out scan serial numbers large (read 5+) quantities of product
Cool!
I guess it’s official. The word “avatar” has become completely meaningless. In fact, the usage here and by Mattel seems to be pretty much the opposite of what the word used to mean.
However, I think it’s fair to say we don’t have a better word for “the device that brings the virtual world into the real one” yet. We can label the process as augmented reality or simply mobile browsing, but it’s somehow not as satisfying. Maybe it’s because the industry doesn’t have it’s pithy thought leader yet.
An avatar is an “embodiment.” What’s your definition?
I’d go with “an embodiment, stand-in or other indirect representation of a person” (–or spirit, or god, if you want to be comprehensive).
Examples. In your IM window or Twitter, your handle is your text avatar. In a virtual world, you probably have a 3D avatar. OTOH, Lara Croft isn’t an avatar, nor is your blackberry, unless you’ve taken these icons on as visual representations of yourself somewhere. The movie Surrogate was full of avatars in a technical sense (but old-time VR folks would probably classify these as Waldos).
I guess you could say a device that lets you monitor your Second Life avatar remotely could maybe be an Avatar Monitoring Gadget. Is that more of what you meant by Avatar Gadget?
That image made my day, Lol!
the parts of the devices appears very sleek and awesome.
http://www.msoft-technologies.com
http://www.msoftwebtemplates.com
John, you write about my little baby the CueCat every couple of months. I think you have a crush, no?
LMK when you hit SF next, and I will autograph one for your wall of shame!
Dave
The inventor…