I had a couple including one USB one that I later modified to use to scan regular bar codes.
I pulled up Wikipedia to look up who created them, and apparently he changed his name after they failed. He was also on Curse of Oak Island searching for gold and was involved in ballot shenanigans in the 2020 US presidential election where he was notable for supposedly inventing a machine to find bamboo fibers on ballots.
They died when a greedy hedge fund shorted the fuck out of them forcing them into bankruptcy. Its the same shit with Sears and Toys R Us.
I agree with you about the phones though. That was a rough transition and they lost a lot of their identity.