# Touch Tone Beeps on National Geographic: why?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/touch-tone-beeps-on-national-geographic-why/227942
**Category:** Factual Questions
**Created:** [February 7, 2004, 3:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/touch-tone-beeps-on-national-geographic-why/227942 "2004-02-07T03:46:05Z")
**Posts on this page:** 2
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Stonebow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stonebow)
#### Post date: [February 7, 2004, 3:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/touch-tone-beeps-on-national-geographic-why/227942/1 "2004-02-07T03:46:05Z")
Watching the National Geographic Channel on television (US cable stations), I am always disturbed by the touch tone beeps that pop up during commercials for the channel. Does anyone know what these are? I assume that they’re not subliminal messages, but what are they?
thanks in advance.
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### Author:  [@TJdude825](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TJdude825)
#### Post date: [February 8, 2004, 4:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/touch-tone-beeps-on-national-geographic-why/227942/2 "2004-02-08T04:37:51Z")
There used to be a little device called Cuecat, which would scan special barcodes on magazines, newspapers, etc. and that code would connect to a particular website. If I were writing an online article about a website, I would just link to it. But in print, I’d have to type out the address. I guess the point of Cuecat was that the little barcodes would be like a link, within a hard copy, saving the reader the effort of typing a URL. I don’t remember this in great detail, but I think they also had a system for TV and radio, where the computer’s microphone would pick up a certain sequence of tones, and interpret it as a URL. Cuecat [is apparently dead](http://www.cuecat.com/) but perhaps these are something similar. Can you record the sounds, or describe them in more detail?