Four Echo Blocks

 

In 1991, researchers at Cambridge University had a problem. They’d run out of coffee and head to the Trojan Room in the computer science building for a refill. All too often, when they got there, they’d find no coffee in the pot. I don’t know how far their desks were from the Trojan Room, or how long it took to brew a fresh pot, but it was a significant source of frustration. At least two of the researchers – Quentin Stafford-Fraser and Paul Jardetzky – rigged a camera so they could monitor the coffee pot without leaving their desks. So, the first web cam was created to avoid fruitless coffee runs. Today, I can watch the tide ebb and flow at Whitby. I can check the London traffic. I can see the Pope waving at tourists in Rome, and penguins playing at Sea World. Or, I can observe the delivery driver putting a package on my doorstep.