Webcams - Life Savers or Privacy Breakers? Part 2

I guess it’s just the way of the future, or the way of today, but no sooner had I waxed on about the web cam viewer saving a lost guy some 500km’s away in the dark, then someone in Cyprus alerts zoo keepers in Scotland that a rhino was about to give birth. So in the space of 2 days we witnessed web cam technology and people sitting at home watching them save one life and help bring another into the world.


Truly lovely!

But locally we have also witnessed another of the web cams darker sides, and it happened on out TV in our apartment.

A panda was born in the Chiang Mai zoo last year and since its birth one of the cable channels has provided 24 hour viewing of the cub and its mother. You can imagine our surprise when over coffee one morning before work we flicked over to see the little fella furiously having a go at himself without knowing thousands of people would be watching, most likely on 42 inch flat screen cinema quality.

Poor little bloke. See what I mean, web cams are evil!

So it got me thinking; there has to be an upside to all this web cam watching, something or some way we can leverage the seemingly plethora of people willing to sit and watch their computer screens and take action on what they see.

So here's a few ideas I think could work:

A web cam viewing service in Bangladesh to watch over your sleeping baby whilst you are out at the shops. (Everyone knows those radio transmitters only have a limited range and won’t even reach you around the corner)

Someone in Mongolia can call me when the Eastern Distributor is running ok each morning to save me sitting in traffic (or having to look it up on the net myself)

A guy in Libya who I can text when I have lost my keys. Not too sure how this one would work without a cam in our house, but I like it all the same.

A phone call from anywhere when someone is driving my car who’s not me. Again, would need a cam in my car, but hey cab’s have them, so why shouldn’t I?

A picture MMS’d to my mobile when someone is at my door. The picture should be clear enough so I know exactly who it is and whether I should turn the TV down and lights off and pretend we’re not home.

Now I haven’t done a search as yet, but I’m pretty positive that there must already be some company out there in some far off country that offers web cam viewing and alert services.  And I bet the range of places and things to be viewed and alerts to be raised is endless.

And if there’s not, then the idea is mine and you can’t have it!

Webcams - Life Savers or Privacy Breakers?

Today’s papers are reporting the amazing story of a lost German photographer in the North west of the country saved by a woman watching the same sunset he was there to photograph from her home some 500km’s away. The lady was watching the sunset from a webcam set up on the remote beach when she saw glimpses of the lost man’s torch. He started flashing his torch in the hope of being spotted by someone much closer I expect.

The woman spotted the flashes, assumed someone was in trouble and alerted the police who guided the photographer to safety. He was lost when the sun went down and he lost the coast as it was covered in snow.

So all’s well that ends well and a story that could have had a different ending, but what does this mean for us?

It’s great that we now have the technology to stay at home and watch the sunset 500km’s away. We can stay in our lounge room, nice and warm and watch the snow fall on a remote mountain peak, or get dressed up or down and watch dancers at a full moon party on a beach far from home. And maybe the guy will take up this approach instead of traipsing around in the dark next time, but what about the dozens, maybe hundreds, possibly thousands of people out there doing more sinister things with their web cam viewings?

What if you’re spotted by your vegetarian girlfriend scoffing down a Big Mac and large fries when on a trip to the shops to get milk? Or seen by your boss sitting front row at the Australian Open final when you should have been in the office? Luckily for the lost photographer, who by all accounts wasn’t doing anything wrong, but what about us poor other innocents just trying to get a bit of pleasure in our ordinarily normal lives?

Not that our bosses or girlfriends catching us eating a fake meat paddy or perving up some girls tennis skirt is all that sinister, after all they’re entitled to know where we are, aren’t they? It’s the sicko’s sitting at home getting all sweaty over some webcam footage of someone eating their lunch in a park that bothers me.

But let’s not go there...

Where’s our privacy gone, where has the odd sneaky day off gone? Soon we will have to sneak out torches off, under the cover of darkness and drive for miles into some far off national park for a sickie. But then again, national parks will more than likely be linked via webcam set up to monitor the annual migration of some bush rodent from one hole to another.

So even the bush will be off limits. At least if we get lost, they may be able to find us.

If someone is actually watching.

And I guess that’s the thing. There are people who sit at their computer screens and watch web cams waiting for something to happen. What’s wrong with these people? Unless you’re a security guard, no one should have a job watching web cam footage. Nor should it be a hobby!

Now there’s an out for the Macquarie banker recently spotted looking at half naked shots of Miranda Kerr whilst his colleague was doing a live recording about the latest Australian Interest rates. He was watching web cam footage to make sure her shoot was going ok and she wasn’t in danger of getting lost.

I’ve seen those shots and I’m sure she’s carrying a torch, so there’s a strong possibility she was worried about getting lost.

So good for him for keeping an eye out.

Back to the lady who kindly saved the lost man last night. Good for her, and we should all be happy there are still concerned citizens in the world, but why was she at home watching web cams?

Let’s not go there either...

Where did my short term memory go?

My short term memory is shot, and it’s got nothing to do with the RAM, ROM or bios. My real short term memory is destroyed by technology, I can’t recall anything of importance which is due or has happened within 2 weeks either side of today. Today is found on a calendar connected to my emails, instant messenger and my Ipod.

For god’s sake when did my life’s schedule fit into such a small space but at the same time become so connected to my music and social chats about drinks on Thursday night?

I’m one of us conventionally wowed by new technology but one of the last to run out and buy it. Not because I fear it or am necessarily a Luddite but I like technology that is obvious and has a specific use, not so much the gizmo’s that connect and converge with stuff I already have. After all I really don’t need my calendar when I’m out running around with my Ipod in my ears. But I suppose I can appreciate the new things that bring these cumbersome units into one and enable me to carry one brick instead of 3. It will just take me longer than most to have one.

But the reason I don’t rush out and snap them up is I don’t want to have to go through the effort of setting up and synching all these pieces and then knowing which one I can then be rid of. It’s the last part that worries me the most, what happens if I haven’t synced it all up correctly and I lose that doctors appointment I missed 3 years ago? Or more importantly miss someone’s birthday because let’s face it, I’m crap with dates.

I digress... What really concerns me is my degraded short term memory. And although the short term memory sits between sensory and long term memory and therefore meant to degrade or at least “clear out” periodically to allow more stuff in, it’s the fact that I’m cramming all my short term stuff into electronics in some strange hope that it will guide me day to day. And to some extent this it works. But at what cost? What happens when over the long term, my short term memory extends to only knowing how to use my electronic brick or only where I left it 30 minutes ago.

If technology doesn’t make these things intuitive and easy to use for people with no short term memory how will I remember how to use it once I have found it again? But as most of us know already if you don’t know how to use it, hand it to a 5 years old and it’s programmed within seconds.
So maybe all I need is a 5 year old and they can manage my schedule?

So in time my capability to remember anything will only include smells from 1978, when I was 3 and the words to Neil Diamond’s entire collection but no recollection of what I did at 2pm yesterday or where I should be at 3:15pm today. That will be in my brick which will be the size of a pea and implanted in my neck.

I just hope the 5 year old doesn’t need feeding and I need to remember when to do it.