Saturday, May 12, 2007 @ 10:14 PM
WebcamA web camera, or better known as webcam, is any real-time camera (usually attached to the PC, either directly or wirelessly) which generates images that can be accessed by and displayed on the World Wide Web through a server.
Essentially, the webcam works by taking a live picture or snapshot and is uploaded to a website from the camera at regular intervals, typically every few minutes. Furthermore, by looking at the web page from which the camera operates, one will be able to can see what the camera sees almost as it happens.
Today, the webcam technology is so widely used by all sorts of people for all sorts of different reasons. In fact, there are literally thousands of webcams across the world showing images of practically every topic imaginable (eg. cities, weather, volcanoes, space and animals)
The uses of a webcam are limitless. Since the first webcam was set up in 1991, webcams have soon crept into homes, businesses, public streets and buildings. Not only are they often used for personal use in the home by parents who want to give distant relatives visual access to their children or want to monitor what goes on in the home while they are at work, people might also use them in the home to keep an eye on things while they are out of town. Businesses often use webcams for video conferencing. Some schools and day care facilities use a webcam to allow parents to see what their children do at school.
Not only that, webcam capabilities have also been added to instant messaging text chat services such as Yahoo Messenger, AOL Instant Messenger (AIM), Windows Live Messenger, and Skype. With that, one-to-one live video communication over the internet has now reached millions of mainstream PC users worldwide.
In the modern world we live in today, almost everyone is able to gain access to the Internet. Hence, with the addition of the webcam technology, it further enhances the convenience which technology brings by enabling people to see live images of each other even when they live across the globe. With that, people no longer have to travel on long flights just to catch a glimpse of their loved ones before returning back to their normal hectic life elsewhere as they can now easily do so with the use of the webcam.
The conveniences that a webcam brings about is so widely accepted and appreciated to the extent that it is even used by cheese makers in Somerset show the maturing process of a Cheddar cheese via a webcam on the Internet, which attracted views from thousands of cheese lovers all around the world. (from the news article, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/somerset/6501889.stm)
EDGED
