CD recording technology to write data as a picture?

No, not LightScribe technology...

I forgot the company, but awhile back there was at least one company coming out with a recorder (CDR/CDRWs only at the time) that was able to strategically write (i.e. burn) data on the read/write side of a CD disk in such a way as to display an image.

Yes, you would not be able to burn up to 700MB, as gaps would be necessary to display the picture...

Anyone recall? Has this taken off, or fell flat on it's face? It was interesting to say the least... Just wondering if it's still alive, as I read through LightScribe stuff, which I find cumbersome (i.e. must buy specific media.)

It was yamaha I believe. and it was even more of a gimmick than lightscribe. The way it worked was that the drive overburned discs which created a visible image on the reverse side. And the data itself was not being burned as an image. The way it works was that any free space left over could be used to draw an image. Due to the nature of cds, all free space is usually on the outer edge. so basically the technology was limited to a little border or something. In theory, you could draw whatever you wanted on a blank disc, but obviously there wouldn't be any way to store actual data on it. And since most burned discs(at least in my experience), aside from something like a small photo album, use most of the capacity of the cd, you really aren't left with much room to burn an image on the edges.

Edit: here you go: http://www.yamahamultimedia.com/yec/tech/discta2_01.asp
As you can see, there is the inner data area, and the outer "tattoo" area. Having a large image border clearly limits the usable capacity of the discs.

yep, was called t@2, i believe. It's being replaced by LabelFlash