Filed under: Security, Utilities, Video, Macintosh
Turn your webcam into a security camera with Periscope
by Jay Hathaway Jun 10th 2008
Have you ever wondered how you could set your webcam up as a security camera and have the images sent to you somewhere else? Maybe you wanted motion detection or noise detection to turn it on automatically? Or maybe that's just us, and we're a little paranoid. Regardless, Periscope is a tool that lets you do all of those things with your webcam, and more. You can trigger it to start recording in several ways: motion detection, noise detection, via Apple Remote, or with a timer. Once it's on, it'll capture images and save them to disc or send them to a few other places for review. It works with Flickr, e-mail, FTP, iPhoto, and the now-obsolete .mac (presumably an upcoming version will support MobileMe). You can also time-stamp or add your own logo automatically to your pictures.
Even if you're not interested in the security applications of Periscope, you might find it useful for making time-lapse videos. With its ability to capture images at intervals, you could theoretically capture your entire day at your desk if you had the disk space. Although we tested it with a built-in iSight, Periscope should work with other webcams.
So, just how good at time waster games are you? Think you've got the stuff? Well, The World's Hardest Game 2.0 doesn't think you do.
Yes, amazingly, it's possible to have a sequel to a game called "The World's Hardest Game". It doesn't seem logically possible, since if the first one was actually the world's hardest, how could another one come along and share the moniker? It made me doubt the name in the first place. That is, until I tried the game.
The mechanics of the game are very simple. You are a small red square, ...
