Webcams, iPhone Apps, and Google Maps
Webcams from all over the world (8,000 and counting) can be found and viewed at the Webcams.travel website. Of course most of these so called webcams are actually IP cameras.
They’ve got some really neat Google integration – so much so that between that and the site logo looking very similar to the one used by Google’s own Chrome browser, the person that pointed the site out to me told me that it was an official Google site!
Some well-thought out features, like their ‘Daylight’ button feature – which captures the webcam scene at noon and allows you to view it as captured in daylight if you happen to visit the camera after dark – a neat solution to a problem I’m sure we’ve all come across.
Integration with a hotel booking provider, that lets you find a choice of hotels near the web camera you’re viewing.
Specially developed iPhone Apps allow you to integrate with the Webcams.travel website and view your favourite tourist hot spots directly on your iPhone. Some, such as WorldView, offer a free App version. Moxier World uses their API to deliver world time, weather forecasts and live views from webcams to your iPhone, iPod Touch, or Google Android phone handset.
The ability to add/embed a gadget into your website (as we have above) or even to display your favourite web camera on your iGoogle Home page.
If you’re a webcam owner you can get automatic notification if your webcam goes down, or if somebody Posts a comment to your camera’s page.
Tight integration with Google Maps. The ability to precisely re-position a webcam to its correct location in Google Maps, and even integration with Google Earth as an official layer showing all the web camera locations.
All in all, it’s an impressively well executed set of applications. They are adding 1,000 webcams every couple of months or so, and yet it is still in Beta!
It’s fascinating to sit and watch this gadget ‘tour’ the webcams of the world – simply click on the image from any camera that takes your fancy and you’ll be taken to its home page for further details and information.
