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The thing I dislike about most webcams is that they are designed to sit on the top of your monitor. That means that depending on how large an LCD you use the camera is either up too high making you have to look up at it or down to low so you have to hunch over. IPEVO has unveiled a new webcam called the P2V that is on an articulating arm and can be more at your level.
We’re not entirely convinced by the idea of naming your autonomous webcam “The Mole”; after all, when it comes to eyesight moles aren’t especially known for their 20/20 vision. Still, we’ll overlook that since Astak’s Mole is pretty nifty: a motion-activated IP webcam, with WiFi and wired ethernet connections, that can automatically upload footage to YouTube together with sending out email and Twitter messages.
Webcams fall into two groups, those junky kind that are built into many notebooks and just don’t work well and the aftermarket kind that can be had in up to HD resolutions. If HD resolution isn’t enough for you, you can get a webcam called the Roundshot Livecam D2 HD with a whopping 66 million pixels giving it two times the resolution of 1080p.
We’ve a soft-spot for USB-connecting mini LCD displays – they’re a nifty way to get Photoshop toolbars, IM windows, Twitter apps and other windows off your main display but keep them readily visible – so we’re glad to see more options hitting the market. DoubleSight have three sub-displays to choose from, starting from the 7-inch DS-70U and then breaking into the hitherto unusual 9-inch segment with the DS-90U and DS-90UC.
HP have outed their new video conferencing system, HP SkyRoom, with the promise of live conversation and desktop collaboration for up to four users simultaneously and at potentially HD resolution. First mentioned back at the launch of the flagship Z800 workstation in March, SkyRoom already has some high-profile contented users including an F1 team. It uses data transfer technologies that NASA used with their Mars rovers, thanks to sub-100ms latency.
Video overview after the cut
We’ve seen cellularly-enabled CCTV cameras before – capable of shooting images across the mobile networks and directly to your cellphone – but never have they been so droid-like in their design. BrickHouse Security’s motion-activated Global Watchman is a ruggedized 1.3-megapixel camera with onboard battery and IR flash for discretely illuminating nighttime scenes.
Video demo after the cut
ASUS have rolled out a new version of their standalone Skype videophone, in the shape of the AiGuru SV1T. The most significant change from the first-gen AiGuru SV1 is that the 7-inch 800 x 480 display now gets a touchscreen layer, meaning users no longer have to arduously navigate via the D-pad.
One of the cool technologies that is available now and just hasn’t really caught on is video calling. You can place video calls from your computer today using a webcam, but most users still prefer to just text or IM.
Don’t back away from the screen in terror; we’ve had it on good authority that the Hercules Dualpix HD720p you see here is actually considerably smaller in real life. What such a large image does help show you, though, is that the webcam is HD 720p capable, complete with an autofocus lens and integrated microphone.
Today marks the day that OmniVision announced a sensor that could potentially make 1080p video capture a very real possibility in mobile devices. And not in ten years. The sensor is called the OV2710, and it can record the HD resolution at 30 frames per second, and it utilizes a 2-megapixel camera that matches the format. Keeping the megapixels low adds quite a few benefits, like lower expenses and getting better image quality in low lighting situations.
JP
