If you’ve ever wondered about the origins of the devices you use every day, you’re sure to discover something surprising. Because, as is often the case, many inventions are born by accident or to meet a very specific need. The original has been finally edited. An interesting example can be found in how the webcam was invented.
To know the history of the first webcam, you have to go back to 1991, and specifically to the University of Cambridge. Nowadays, anyone can have a coffee machine in their office for a few euros, but 30 years ago, if you wanted a cup of coffee, you had to go to the cafeteria or the appropriate department where the machine was installed. A coffee machine containing a paper tank that holds ground coffee and drips hot water.
The first webcam in history
The inventors of the first webcam were James Quentin Stafford-Fraser and Paul Jardetzky. They were both research assistants in a lab at the University of Cambridge and coffee lovers. If you wanted coffee, you had to go to the teacher’s office. 60 meters from his officeAnd unfortunately, the coffee pot was almost always empty, so you had to prepare your coffee and wait for it to finish if you didn’t want to run out.
If you’ve ever used this type of coffee machine, you’ll know that it takes time, time you don’t want to waste. The solution was to use security cameras from the manufacturer. phillips Focus on coffee makers and connect using programs through your university network. X Coffee, a program designed to display camera images on a computer, capable of three captures per minute. The grayscale camera provided 128×128 resolution, enough to show whether the restaurant was full or empty.
This way, they would always know when coffee would be available in the cafeteria so they could go and get it and not have to make a wasted trip. As the Internet became popular and browsers added the ability to display images, Quentin modified his application to display: Available via internetThis makes it the first webcam in history.
fun facts
Due to the time difference with other countries, it was night in the UK while it was day in Japan, so there was no lighting at all in the room where the coffee maker was located. Quentin says he’s received several emails from users in these countries asking if this is possible. Leave the lights on all night Although the coffee machine could be viewed in real time, it was meaningless as the status did not change because there was no one in the facility who needed to drink coffee in the early morning.
This coffee maker was broadcast live on the Internet. linkuntil August 22, 2001, when webcam transmission stopped despite how popular it had become after being visited by more than 2 million people every day from all over the world. The world’s most famous coffee maker was eventually auctioned off on eBay for £3,500 and acquired by German magazine Der Spiegel. Spiegel is said to have made it work again without a webcam, the first to transmit its operations over the Internet for 10 years. This is about the BBC’s claims.
