A.T. Cross Cross :Convergence by Chad Denton

Scanning The Web
The Cross :Convergence Pen is the product of a partnership between A.T. Cross and Digital:Convergence. If you haven't heard of Digital:Convergence, it makes the :CueCat barcode scanner that Radio Shack gives away. The :CueCat attaches to a PC and lets users visit Web sites by swiping the barcode that appears on almost every product from books to electronic devices.

Instead of wiring the device to a desktop PC, Cross built a barcode scanner into the tip of a pen. The pen stores up to 300 barcodes. A small receiver, known as the OptoLink, transfers the encoded Web address from the pen to a PC. Because the barcode reader is built into the pen, there's no need to carry a separate device for reading barcodes.

As a pen, this unit is nice. It fits comfortably in your hand, writes well, and looks good. The transparent plastic exposes some of the internal circuitry, giving the pen a high-tech look. The scanner, however, takes work to perfect. We often had to scan a code several times before the pen read the barcode correctly. When it reads a barcode, a green light flashes on the pen.

If you scan a barcode that is not in Digital:Convergence's database, Digital :Convergence will ask you for more information about the product and ask you for a suggested Web site. The barcodes we scanned linked us to company home pages rather than product home pages. This was disappointing because product pages can be more difficult to find.

The included :CRQ software had problems when we initially installed it. Our test machine had both Microsoft's ActiveSync 3.1 and Palm's HotSync installed (for synching PDAs with a desktop PC). The software prevented the :CRQ software from recognizing the OptoLink. Once we disabled the synchronization applications, however, we had no problems. The software adds a panel to the bottom of your screen that organizes the links the scanner has collected into different categories. You can prevent the software from recording links in specific categories.

Although the ability to translate barcodes into Web addresses is interesting and the implementation is better than the :CueCat, we're not sure the unit's worth $89.99.