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Creative hits 1080p with its Live! Cam Socialize HD webcam, launches 720p models too
Today, if your webcam can't do HD it might as well not even power up its sensor in the morning, and Creative is latest to join the full HD crowd with the $89 Live! Cam Socialize HD 1080 -- an excessive title for the latest 1080p webcam to grace your USB ports. It joins the Microsoft LifeCam Studio and Logitech C910 in terms of resolution, but adds some interesting features, perhaps most notably being a dual-microphone array that can be adjusted to provide a field of 20 to 180 degrees, allowing you to control the amount of environmental sound that gets through. Also interesting is a cradle that "scans" in business cards, though we're not sure you really need 1080p for that. Meanwhile, for those who don't necessarily live life 1,920 pixels at a time, there's the $69 Live! Cam Socialize HD AF model, which features a similar design but a 720p sensor, and the $39 Live! Cam Chat HD, which still does 720p but loses much of the other accoutrement. The 720p Socialize model looks to be available now, but no word on when the others will be perching themselves atop your display. %Gallery-107515%
SingTel offers cellphone controlled spycam
Yeah, yeah, the caption reads "watch over your loved ones wirelessly..." but we know by "watch over" they mean spy. With SingTel's dubious intentions aside, the Mobile LIVEcam looks to be a reasonably inexpensive and capable -- albeit optically challenged -- 0.3 megapixel remote camera. For only $240 upfront and about $6 month in service costs you get a 3G SIM card and the camera which can pan, tilt, zoom, and even record video onto a microSD card. If your preferred recording location is a bit dark, the camera features an infrared recording mode to help get the dirtiest of dirt ensure your family's safety. The LIVEcam is controlled via SMS commands or through a web interface -- also accessible by up to 20 others via password control -- on your mobile phone, and with a touted 300 hours standby time, should give you enough time to capture the perfect shots. Yep, anti-privacy never looked so fun.
