Digital Cameras

Home Surveillance using Dropbox Catches Possible Thief in the Act

August 20, 2011

I've been meaning to test out my home surveillance recipe which combines a standard webcam, Dropbox (hosted backup solution), iPhone & iPad mobile Dropbox app, and the free Yet Another Webcam Software (Yawcam). I went to Cape Cod last week and hired a pet sitter to watch our family's dog (Jessie) and cat (Boaz), which offered a perfect opportunity to test out my "poor man's home surveillance" setup. What I found happening in my house while on my vacation shocked me!

But first, my home surveillance recipe:
Setup and install Dropbox (comes with 2GB free). If you use this link, I get 250MB more storage. Create two folders within the main Dropbox folder.

Posted in Digital Cameras, Gadgets, Home Entertainment, Internet, Personal and Humor, TMCnet, Video Hardware & Software

Disney PhotoPass Photos Bent by Callous Post Office

July 5, 2011

My family and I took a trip to Disney World in May and snapped lots of pictures with our digital camera, but we also took advantage of Disney PhotoPass. This is a service where Disney employees snap professional photos in certain prime photo areas of the parks. Each Disney PhotoPass photoshoot results in then giving you a card with a unique code, which you then enter into the website for ordering prints and such.

I was excited to receive the photos we ordered. To my horror when I opened the mailbox one day, I saw this:

Isn't it lovely how the United States Post Office handled our family's memories of our trip? The mailman just shoved the package into our standard-sized mailbox even though it clearly had text that read "Photos Inside.

Posted in Digital Cameras, Personal and Humor

Blue Jeans Network Bridges Skype, SIP, H.323 for Multipoint Telepresence Solution

May 9, 2011

Blue Jeans Network has been quietly developing a new cloud-based video conferencing and collaboration service that bridges H.323 and SIP end-points, PSTN — and even Skype, with the goal of allowing users to connect everything from high-end video telepresence systems like Tandberg/Cisco and Lifesize to web cams running Skype to desktop IP videophones from Polycom, Grandstream, Cisco, and others. This solves a major problem with video conferencing and telepresence since interoperability, while it has improved, still doesn't take into account legacy H.323 end-points or users that only have inexpensive webcams. Blue Jeans Network plans to support Google and Microsoft Lync as well. Their cloud-based service handles the transcoding of audio and video codecs as well as manages the meeting IDs, PINs, etc.

Posted in Cisco, Digital Cameras, Internet, Mobile Phones, News, Polycom, SIP, Skype, TMCnet, Unified Communications, Video Conferencing, Video Hardware & Software, VoIP

Phantom Flex Camera Super HD 2,564fps Staggering Slow-Mo footage (video)

April 20, 2011

Want to see water drops captured at 1080p with 2,564fps speed played back in slow motion? How bout shattering glass and lightbulbs in slow-mo? Or watching the wave impact travel up a Blackberry as it hits? Tom Guilmette took a Vision Research Phantom Flex camera recently and put together a video of mind blowing slow-motion footage. Tom said, "I was working a gig in Vegas with a brand new Phantom Flex high speed digital cinema camera. I had to try it out. In fact, I never did go to bed that night.

Posted in Accessories, Digital Cameras, Gadgets, Home Entertainment, TMCnet, Technology and Science, Video Hardware & Software

Polar Bears + Not-so-indestructible Cameras = Pure Entertainment

January 3, 2011

The BBC's popular BBC show Top Gear collaborated with superspy James Bond's friend and co-worker Q to create not-so-stealthly spy camera gadgets masquerading as chunks of ice designed to spy on polar bears. One of the spy cams Blizzard Cam glides on skis powered by 2 propellers and can reach 40mph. You would think a cam that travels 40mph would have no problem outrunning a polar bear. Well, you would be wrong.

There is also Snowball Cam, a spherical camera designed to survive immense pressures and is designed to get in close to the polar bears.

Posted in Digital Cameras, Gadgets, Home Entertainment, Technology and Science, Video Conferencing, Video Hardware & Software

Kids take photos of Earth's curvature using Balloon and Help from iPad

July 13, 2010

Oh kids these days get all the fun! I wish my science class (back in the day) offered our class a challenge to fly a cellphone with GPS & camera up into the stratosphere to take photos of the Earth's curvature. Alas, the closest I came was an egg drop contest, which was designed to teach about gravity, mass, and seat belt safety (don't ask). A firetruck ladder would drop our eggs in our homemade egg protection cases and see whose eggs survived the fall. See my glorious win along with the other winners from my 7th grade class.

Posted in Apple, Digital Cameras, GPS, Gadgets, Internet, Wireless

Samsung Bundles Boingo Wi-Fi With New Digital Camera

May 12, 2010

The convergence of wireless and gadgets continues. Who needs tethered cables to sync, upload/download, when you can do it wirelessly? Always hate having to plug my camera in to download pics to my PC. Well no longer!

Today, Boingo Wireless, announced that Samsung's new Wi-Fi enabled digital cameras will be pre-loaded with Boingo software, allowing customers to connect to 125,000 Boingo Wi-Fi hotspots worldwide for on-the-go photo and video sharing.

Initially, Boingo software will be pre-installed on the Samsung ST5500/CL80 digital camera, and users will be offered three months of complimentary Boingo Wi-Fi access.

Posted in Digital Cameras, Gadgets, Home Entertainment, TMCnet, Technology and Science, Wireless

Cool New Microsoft 720p LifeCams with TrueColor Technology

March 16, 2010

Microsoft today announced TrueColor Technology which they claim enhances the color and brightness of webcam video in the worst of lighting conditions. True Color Technology is a new image processing technology that automatically adjusts the picture quality to provide more colorful video. It does this through a proprietary combination of software and firmware technology. TrueColor Technology actually leverages face tracking technology developed by Microsoft Research, which can detect a person's face and help ensure it's not overexposed or underexposed, so the video call picture looks great even in the most challenging lighting scenarios.

Microsoft also announced 3 new LifeCam models that support TrueColor Technology.

Posted in Accessories, Digital Cameras, Gadgets, Home Entertainment, Microsoft, Video Hardware & Software

GE's Vscan Portable Ultrasound = No more OB Visits?

October 21, 2009

GE's Chairman and CEO Jeff Immelt unveiled the new Vscan an ultra-small ultrasound. According to GE, "For critical care clinicians, Vscan can offer an immediate look beyond patient vital signs with the potential to identify critical issues, like fluid around the heart, which could be a sign of congestive heart failure. And for cardiologists, Vscan provides a dependable visual evaluation of how well the heart is pumping at a glance, so they can treat patients more efficiently."

It's certainly small enough to be portable - about the size of a mobile phone and could even have some home-use potential - assuming the costs are low.

I can see it now...

Man: "Hey honey, forget about going for an ultrasound and paying a $30 copay, the wasted time and gas money, etc.

Posted in Digital Cameras, Gadgets, PDAs & Handhelds, Technology and Science

TANDBERG PrecisionHD USB Camera Sports 720p HD Video

February 6, 2009

TANDBERG's new PrecisionHD USB Camera is the first webcam to offer HD video at 720p with 30 frames per second. It is optimized for Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 Release 2 providing business-quality HD video communication. It also includes a built-in noise canceling microphone and automatic focus.

The webcam can be hooked onto a laptop (as shown above), making this an excellent mobile videoconferencing choice. It's worth noting that OCS 2007 R2 not only supports HD720p (1280x720 1.5Mbps), but it also now supports an "unlimited" video bitrate setting as seen here:

Now we just need someone to build a 1080p webcam! Of course, the bandwidth required for that might be too much to be practical.

Posted in Digital Cameras, Gadgets, Unified Communications, Video Conferencing, VoIP

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Next

VoIP & Gadgets Blog

Digital Cameras