Webcam
Early webcam usage on the Internet was primarily limited to stationary shots streamed to web sites.
In the late 1990s and early 2000s, instant messaging clients added support for webcams, increasing their popularity in video conferencing.
First developed in 1991, a webcam was pointed at the Trojan Room coffee pot in the Cambridge University Computer Science Department (initially operating over a local network instead of the web).
However, the Vino hardware is capable of DMAing video fields directly into the frame buffer with minimal CPU overhead.
The first widespread commercial webcam, the black-and-white QuickCam, entered the marketplace in 1994, created by the U.S. computer company Connectix.
Jon Garber, the designer of the device, had wanted to call it the "Mac-camera", but was overruled by Connectix's marketing department; a version with a PC-compatible parallel port and software for Microsoft Windows was launched in October 1995.
[6] These cam were tested on several Delta II launch using a variety of communication protocols including CDMA, TDMA, GSM and HF.
One of the most widely reported-on webcam sites was JenniCam, created in 1996, which allowed Internet users to observe the life of its namesake constantly, in the same vein as the reality TV series Big Brother, launched four years later.
[13] Around the turn of the 21st century, computer hardware manufacturers began building webcams directly into laptop and desktop screens, thus eliminating the need to use an external USB or FireWire camera.
[14] With remote work entering the mainstream, the built-in cameras of average laptops were sometimes considered inadequate.
[15] Most laptops before and during the pandemic were made with cameras capping out at 720p recording quality at best, compared to the industry standard of 1080p or 4K seen in smartphones and televisions from the same period.
[16] The backlog on new developments for built-in webcams is the result of a design flaw with laptops being too thin to support the 7mm camera modules to fit inside, instead resorting to ~2.5mm.
[17][18] Also the camera components are more expensive and not a high level of demand for this feature, [19][20] Smartphones started to be used as a backup option or webcam replacement, with kits including lighting and tripods or downloadable apps.
Various lenses are available, the most common in consumer-grade webcams being a plastic lens that can be manually moved in and out to focus the camera.
As a camera system's depth of field is greater for small image formats and is greater for lenses with a large f-number (small aperture), the systems used in webcams have a sufficiently large depth of field that the use of a fixed-focus lens does not impact image sharpness to a great extent.
Typical interfaces used by articles marketed as a "webcam" are USB, Ethernet and IEEE 802.11 (denominated as IP camera).
Newer versions such as 3.X are not supported at this point of time according to Ccrisan, foundator and author of MotionEye.
The most popular use of webcams is the establishment of video links, permitting computers to act as videophones or videoconference stations.
Webcams allow for inexpensive, real-time video chat and webcasting, in both amateur and professional pursuits.
For example, moderation system of various video chat websites such as Omegle has been criticized as being ineffective, with sexual content still rampant.
[26] In a 2013 case, the transmission of nude photos and videos via Omegle from a teenage girl to a schoolteacher resulted in a child pornography charge.
In December 2011, Russia announced that 290,000 Webcams would be installed in 90,000 polling stations to monitor the 2012 Russian presidential election.
[32] Webcams may be installed at places such as childcare centres, offices, shops and private areas to monitor security and general activity.
Some webcams have built-in hardwired LED indicators that light up whenever the camera is active, sometimes only in video mode.
