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A web camera (or webcam) is a real time camera whose images can be accessed using the World Wide Web. Generally a digital camera delivers images to a web server, either continuously or at regular intervals.
Although frequently mentioned in spam email and used on pornographic web sites, they also have many less controversial uses.
The first webcam was pointed at the Trojan room coffee pot at the computer science department of Cambridge University. This webcam is now defunct, as it was finally switched off at 09:54 GMT/UTC on 22 August 2001. The final image captured by the camera can still be viewed at the webcam's homepage [1] http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/coffee/coffee.html .
Initially intended for personal videoconferencing, it was quickly realised that World Wide Web users enjoyed viewing images from cameras set up by others elsewhere in the world. While webcam refers to the technology generally, the "Web" part is often replaced with the "Category" of images the camera provides.
Today there are thousands of webcam that provide views into homes, offices and other buildings as well as providing panoramic views of cities (Metrocams) and the countryside. Images from satellites are frequently posted on the World Wide Web. Webcams are also used to monitor traffic with TraffiCams, the weather with WeatherCams and even volcanos with VolcanoCams.
As with many new technologies, web cams and web cam chat found their earliest commercial adoption and most aggressive technology advancement through use by the adult industry. This soon spread to more of a grass-roots use on instant messaging based chat rooms such as Yahoo Chat, AOL Chat and MSN Chat, where thousands of individuals communicate in real time video teleconferencing around the clock.
See also
External links
- Find Webcam http://www.find-croatia.com/webcam-croatia.html Archive of free webcams in Croatia
- Ithaki Webcam Search http://webcam.ithaki.net/ Biggest archive of free webcams
- webcam world http://ww.com/ Oldest and largest webcam community
- Earth Cam http://www.earthcam.com/ Webcams setup throughout the world
- Cam Central http://www.camcentral.com/ Large index of webcams
- FogCam! http://www.fogcam.org/ Oldest operating webcam
Last updated: 05-03-2005 17:50:55
