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You’ve probably heard about WebcamChatroulette.com, a website that lets you interact with thousands of people via webcam. As the interwebs often shines a light on some corners of society you’d rather not see (or corners you’d rather your children not see), a few clicks of “Next” on Webcam Chatroulette may have you deciding to disable your webcam. We’ve put together a handy step-by-step guide for disabling a webcam.

These screen shots are from a laptop operating on Windows 7.

If you’re a parent, there are a few reasons why you may want to disable your webcam, all of them having to do with safety. Video instant messaging and websites like WebcamChatroulette aren’t always child-friendly, and you may decide disabling your webcam is your best recourse. Read the rest of this entry »

Samsung has announced that they will be equipping their TVs with the ability to support Skype video calls. The new TVs are already available in South Korea, but you could expect to see Skype on TV from Samsung in other parts of the world within the next year.

Skype on TV sounds like a great idea, but if I ever get an incoming call during the last seconds of an important game I will freak out…

A violent late winter storm with fierce rain and hurricane-strength winds battered France, Spain and Portugal on Sunday, leaving at least 45 people dead.

Many of the 40 victims in France drowned, while others died when hit by parts of buildings or trees and branches that were ripped off by the wind. At least a dozen people were missing and hundreds of others were injured. The storm, named Xynthia, was the worst in France since 1999 when 90 people died. Nearly 900,000 people in France were without electricity…

As the sun sets on February 27, 2010, the day that a massive earthquake struck off the shore of Chile, people console one another next to a destroyed building in Talca.

The magnitude 8.8 earthquake struck off the coast at 2:34 a.m., local time, and has killed at least 200 people in Chile. The earthquake also spawned massive tsunamis, which have struck Hawaii and are expected to strike New Zealand and even Alaska.

St David’s Day is celebrated in Wales on 1 March, in honour of Dewi Sant or St David, the patron saint of Wales. Little is known about him for certain. What little information we have is based on an account of his life written by Rhigyfarch towards the end of the 11th century.

According to this Latin manuscript, Dewi died in the year 589. His mother was called Non, and his father, Sant, was the son of Ceredig, King of Ceredigion. After being educated in Cardiganshire, he went on pilgrimage through south Wales and the west of England, where it is said that he founded religious centres such as Glastonbury and Croyland. He even went on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, where he was made archbishop. Read the rest of this entry »

Hey so I know you want to capture everything that you experience. Wait you don’t? Then don’t read this. You’ll get all mad probably. This is a concept design about a set of wireless headphones that also have a 10.1 megapixel digi-cam on one side and a digital image projector on the side. You can capture your world all the time and put that stuff on the internet right away. Instantly.

Here’s basically the manifesto of this project: Support the act of exploration by giving people better tools. Deepen image’s meaning by supoprting as much information as possible. Bring people together by enabling individuals to express themselves.

There’s all kinds of wireless going on with this project. It’s got P2P, automatic backup into your computer, and instant wireless uploading to the internets. And! And! With the projector, you can project as you record. How useless is that? Not at all. I need people to know what they look like.  Designer: William Gerwin

By the end of the month, Delaware residents and the rest of the world will be able to log on to to the Delmarva Ornithological Society’s Web site, click on a link and see what’s up with Wilmington’s pair of Peregrine Falcons.

The society and DuPont Co.’s Clear into the Future Program partnered to install a real-time camera in the peregrine nesting box on the Brandywine Building in downtown Wilmington. In addition, the company provided money for six months of web hosting for a total package of $6,000.

“Eventually, we hope to have a network of raptor cams,” said Timothy Ireland, with DuPont’s Clear into the Future program. “You’ll be able to see the mating behavior. … You’ll really get insight into these magnificent birds.”

But here’s a warning from Bill Stewart, the ornithological society’s conservation chair: “This is real life, and some of it may not be for the faint of heart.” So how bad can it be, you wonder. After all, these are birds. Stewart relates this story about efforts to band the four chicks in last year’s nest. Stewart said he wanted to tape the process, and held his camera up to a peep hole on the backside of the nesting box. Read the rest of this entry »

Tokyo : 2,187 km², 12,790,001 people… want to see what’s going on in Tokyo right this very minute?

Here’s a selection of some of the best live webcams. All of the cameras are running in real time (none of that “updates every ten seconds” nonsense), and you can control them yourself. Just click on the images below and away you go:  Tokyo Webcam - More webcam from Japan

In a carefully worded legal statement, Lynn Matsko, the vice principal of Harriton High in Philadelphia, accused of confronting 15-year-old student, Blake Robbins, with a snapshot taken of him at home, using spyware placed on his school issued laptop, has denied any wrongdoing.

 She said and I quote, “At no time have I ever monitored a student via a laptop webcam.” I do not like her answer, as it is evasive. She said she did not monitor him at home, which is semantics, as she has refused to explain how she ended up with a webcam taken photo of Robbins at home in his bedroom. Read the rest of this entry »