DID YOU KNOW…
Coffee Pot Spurred the Invention of the World's First Webcam
The world's first webcam wasn't designed for video calls or security surveillance, but rather to help scientists at Cambridge University avoid fruitless trips to an empty coffee pot. It streamed its first pixels in 1991.
Tired of finding the coffee pot in their Trojan Room empty after a walk to the main lab, researchers at the University of Cambridge's Computer Lab devised a simple system. They set up a camera aimed at the coffee machine and connected it to their internal network, allowing them to remotely check the pot's status from their desktops. When the World Wide Web became more accessible in 1993, they made this feed publicly available, inadvertently creating the internet's first widely accessible live webcam and capturing the attention of millions worldwide with a humble stream of a coffee pot.
Love discovering things like this?
A new fact every day with photos, on the free app.
Run a business? This line is for you. Everyone else, read on.
I wrote this page once and it has been working on its own ever since, including tonight while I sleep.
I build the storefront for your business, under your own name, and you see it before you pay anything. If you don't like it, that's the end of it.
Show me my shopBlackstar Digital Studio · Las Palmas de Gran Canaria · Made in Italy 🇮🇹