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Did a Pennsylvania school district use iSight to iSpy?
The FBI and lots of parents want to know if school-issued MacBooks were used to spy on students at a suburban Philadelphia school. Earlier today, a federal judge was asked to stop the school from destroying any records or logs from the 2,300 laptops that were used by high school students that attended Harriton High School in the Lower Merion School District. The district admitted that it activated the iSight cameras to find more than 40 missing student computers. Officials claim that the district is no longer turning the cameras on remotely. Meanwhile, other lawyers are pursuing a potential class-action lawsuit against the district. The FBI is investigating if the school district broke any federal wiretapping or computer intrusion laws. The district noted that students must sign a release when they get the laptops, but the release does not state that the iSight cameras might be activated without the permission or knowledge of the students or their families. The parties met in court today as a judge ruled on the preserving of evidence. Some students say they are now putting tape over the camera and microphone on the laptops to keep school employees from seeing or hearing anything. According to one student involved in the legal action, the controversy began when an Assistant Principal at the school said the student was acting inappropriately at home. The student wondered how the Assistant Principal would know, and that started the investigation. The school district has said that it has not spied on students, but activated the cameras on computers it said were lost or stolen. Creepy.
OS X 10.5.7: The hidden fixes
I really didn't have any complaints about the latest Mac OS update. It went smoothly on 3 Macs, and I didn't hear any complaints from friends or associates. While many people moan about things that didn't get fixed, I'm somewhat concerned about the things that the 10.5.7 update DID fix that I didn't know about.A bit of background: For about a year I've had a Logitech Webcam. It was designed for the Mac, and was meant to replace the iSight firewire webcam that Apple unceremoniously discontinued. The Logitech unit, a Quickcam Vision Pro for Mac, has a wonderful crisp image and a nice wide angle view. It is plug and play. That's the problem. As some other users have seen, its internal aperture adjustment sometimes goes haywire, and you have to unplug it, and re-plug it in again to get a picture that is not really, really dark. It's kind of plug and play, then unplug or don't play. Then plug it in again.
Swarovski-coated webcam: because everything should be shiny
Vicious and Divine's Laplace webcam had it all... 2 megapixel photo and 1.3 megapixel video resolution, an integrated flash so that it could handle innumerable lighting situations, a folding mechanism that particularly suited it to mounting on laptops or flat panel monitors, plus that compact and sleek design. It was the jet-set of webcams, some might say, but it seemed to lack something -- some essential quality of life. Possibly a higher purpose? As it turns out, all it needed was to be absolutely, 100 percent covered -- bedazzled, if you dare -- in Swarovski crystals. The results are pretty... stunning. And not at all obscene. It comes in both black and clear crystal variations, and €49.99 (about $63) seems a small price to pay for something that's going to make you the envy of all of your friends -- but it seems to be available only in Europe. Your loss, rest-of-the-Earth!Update: According to a commenter, the actual price of this camera is €399, not €49.99. We missed that in our frenzied excitement.
Next-gen Nokia 770 could sport webcam, WiMax
Those of you who were disappointed to learn that Nokia eschewed that rumored QWERTY thumb board for a less functional on-screen keyboard in the recent 770 software bump will be pleased to hear that a new interface method is just one of several changes the company is looking at for its next-generation of Internet tablets. In discussing the future of the 770 line with Cnet, Nokia's VP of convergence Ari Virtanen also mentioned that a webcam could be part of the equation, as one of the company's goals with this lineup is to duplicate the fixed Internet experience on a mobile device. And although cellphone radios are still not expected to find their way into these new products-- Virtanen said that Nokia wants to keep some of its offerings out of the "cellular value chain" -- their absence may not be actually be missed that much if the company goes ahead and includes WiMax as it's also said to be considering.
HP Coliseum does web conferencing in 3D
While we've been waiting patiently for the Xbox Live Vision cam to be released the folks at HP Labs have been hard at work on a heavy-duty system for "immersive teleconferencing" that can be run on a standard PC. A recently released research paper demonstrates a rig consisting of five FireWire equipped-webcams strategically mounted to an LCD monitor. Software combines the cams' images into a real-time 3D model that looks like a character out of Tony Hawk's Pro Skater and mimics your every move, shrugs included. The creation and transmission of the virtual you into the rather drab looking virtual conference room takes up some serious resources -- the testing machines were reportedly equipped with dual Intel Xeon processors and between 1GB and 4GB RAM -- so chances are if these go into production they'll be hitting fancy corporate offices well before you'll see them conjuring up all manner of bizarre YouTube videos.[Thanks, Staska. Warning: PDF link]
Xbox Live Vision cam coming on 9/19
Xbox 360 owners eagerly waiting to see if "HotGamerBabe" really lives up to her handle now have a solid date for that first exciting face-to-face meeting over Xbox Live: September 19th. That's the day that Europe and the US will see a simultaneous release of the Xbox Live Vision camera, according to well-known gamer-cum-Microsoft employee Major Nelson. The Major did not reveal, however, what pricing will look like for the cam, which is meant for video-conferencing, video emails, and profile customization.
Creative's Live! Cam Voice sports a mic for video chat
Video instant messaging seems to be taking off in a big way, at least if all those new video features being added by the major IM services are any indication, so Creative has just released a microphone-sporting webcam to let you get in on all the fun. Besides a 1.3 megapixel webcam (which claims to take 5 megapixel stills, but we suspect some interpolation is going on there), the Live! Cam Voice also features a directional microphone which supposedly enhances your chat experience in crowded areas, and even does double-duty as a remotely-viewable motion-activated security cam. When you're doing the chat thing, you can select a smart-face tracking option that uses digital zooms, pans, and tilts to keep you in the picture, but also seems to throttle down the resolution to only 640 x 480. Available immediately under the model number VF1070, this model is being given a suggested MSRP of $99 by Creative, but we already saw it on Amazon for just $84.
