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BT-1 Bluetooth webcam for Mac finally shipping
To think, we've been waiting on the edge of our seats since January to get our hands on Ecamm's BT-1 wireless, Bluetooth-enabled webcam for OS X. Sure, 640 x 480 / 15fps H.264 video quality is comparable to what our MacBooks get anyway, but hey, at least you can be a little more artsy on your Skype calls without losing that prime display viewing angle. All that waiting doesn't matter now, anyway, since it's finally shipping out. Price is $150 and it includes a mini-tripod and USB charger cable -- can't seem to get rid of wires entirely just yet. As for Windows support, it's still not there officially, but we've no doubt some intrepid young coder with an afternoon to spare will fix that.
Ecamm announces BT-1 Bluetooth webcam for Macs
It looks like Mac users tired of their built-in webcams and concerned about the clutter caused by regular USB cams will soon have another option to consider, as Ecamm Network has just announced what it's claiming to be the world's first Bluetooth webcam. Apparently, you can expect to get some standard 640x480 H.264 video out of the thing, along with 48 kHz AAC stereo audio and a promised four hours of talk time before you need to pull out that dreaded USB cable. None too surprisingly, you'll also have a pay a bit of a premium over your run-of-the-mill webcam, with the so-called BT-1 set to demand a hefty $150 when it rolls out sometime late in the first quarter of the year. No word on Windows support just yet, but we'd presume that'd follow shortly thereafter, officially or otherwise.
Mirror-based video conferencing developed for iPhone
It's pretty obvious that Apple didn't design the iPhone with video conferencing in mind -- what with the camera on the back and all -- but that doesn't seem to have dissuaded the folks from Ecamm Network, who recently whipped up a workaround with the help of some mirrors and some coding skills. Although it's yet to be independently verified, the contraption (done for the C-4 developers conference "Iron Coder Live" contest) is apparently based on a slightly modified Huckleberry MacBook "periscope," and employs some hastily coded software to properly orient the image and rely the video from one iPhone to another (with a web server lending a hand in that process). Unfortunately, you can't yet make a fool of yourself in public unless you have some comparable coding skills of your own, although we're guessing that won't be the case for long.
