Thanks. I was wondering what this was about; my best guess was the CueCat from one of Joel Spolsky's old columns...
I just checked, and CueCats are as low as $7 on eBay. Barcode readers convert barcodes to plaintext (and barcode printers go the other way), so CueCats are good for more than just scanning ads...
I wonder if there's room for a CueCat Users' Group. :)