{MAIN PAGE}{FRIENDS}{LINKS}{SPYCAMS}{BACKDOORS}{INTENET SEARCH}{PICS}{GARTH}{ME}{THE END???}


wrightr@wwics.com
The real-time Web cam phenomenon, while a mere toddler in human years, has matured in Internet time into a global fad that's launched companies, revitalized the solar clock, and made strange things famous — coffee pots, for instance, and moldy Spam. We've got eyes, and we like to use 'em.

So I took a peek at Boston Common: Looked pretty green to me. How about Manhattan? Hm — kind of hard to tell, from the top of the Empire State Building. While I was at it, I figured I'd also scan Dallas (plenty leafy), New Orleans (Bourbon Street), and San Francisco (early yet).

Name any metropolitan area, in fact, and chances are you can check its skyline: Chicago, St. Louis, Denver, Las Vegas. Worldwide, there's Oslo, Sidney, Mawson Station, Antarctica, even. But, especially while casting your eyes off-continent, you've got to be aware of where the sun is — or rather, just how far the earth has spun. The other morning, for instance, I couldn't get a good view of Fairbanks, Alaska (still dark).

But scanning a city skyline is just one thing, and not necessarily the most interesting thing, that you can do with a Web cam. Seems we've an irrepressible urge to spy, as well.
Like, who's working? Office cams abound. Check for activity at the CNN Newsroom or lurk in the corner of the Communications Technology Lab at Michigan State University (its clock's wrong). See who's taking frequent breaks at MediaPlan Inc.'s watercooler, or the kitchen at Berkeley Systems.

And you can even get more personal: Peer at a couch in a University of Michigan dorm room, or the similar Jason Cam, or Absolutely Amazing Deming Attic Cam. Then there's The Adams' living room.
Now, I've come across no live lewdness (not that it's not out there, just that it's entirely avoidable). But that's not to say that you can't get a load of some pretty strange stuff. The camera that started it all — the one trained on the now-famed Trojan Room coffee pot, in Cambridge (U.K.) — is strange enough; but what of the SpamCam (moldering)? Or the FeetCam, or a real-time look at a lava lamp?

Reminds me: what's on Comedy Central right now?

Also whimsical are a slew of cameras trained on animals, from Netscape's famous Amazing Fish Cam, to a Rat Cam to a Cat Cam, to, well, Keiko, the Killer Whale.

All that blue water makes me wonder: What's the weather like in Ft. Lauderdale Beach just now? Ah, summery. The way it should be.