Surveillance Screensaver

This is a intriguing yet creepy idea for a screensaver:

SurveillanceSaver is a screensaver which shows live images of over 400 network surveillance cameras worldwide. Yep, when your computer is idle you’ll get to see a live feed of what’s going on in other parts of the world. It’s quite fascinating because of the voyeuristic element involved but also surreal because it compresses time-space.
Something is happening right at the moment elsewhere and you are a witness to it. It is real but since it’s only an image, you tend to question its verity a little more than what you see with your eyes. Sometimes I can’t bear to look away from the screen because I’m always expecting something to happen just that moment, maybe a car accident or a cute girl would enter into the frame.

Available for OS X and Windows version (but not Vista, supposedly): http://slorker.com/a-haunting-live-soap-opera-a-surveillance-screensaver/ - Thanks Jon Jason!

This is very cool... Some of the images don't update real-time, but others are almost once a second. However, the screen saver isn't "instant off" when you move the mouse, so that bit is a little annoying. Well, unless my PC is slower and that's the cause. Still, a nice screen saver.

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Wow. I can't wait to try this out. It's a bit voyeuristic in a sense wanting to see what others are doing and I can guess that many who use this will want to continue looking at the images to see if anything "interesting" will happen. I guess this must be what a security guard must feel like when they are sitting there looking at the screens all day.

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Link is dead. Returns 404 error

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I love this. I've always been a bit of a screensaver whore, but this is something special. Last night I saw a big fat pig sleeping contentedly in a pig pen somewhere in the UK. Also, there's LOTS of cams in Scandinavia. All the snow and short daylight hours this time of year makes for fascinating viewing. Artificially lit pine trees and real time snowdrifts in Finland - Well atmospheric.

Has anyone written any scripts to get updated cam lists from google? The current list dates back to March 2008. Still heaps of live cams on there but it would be nice to keep the list current and add any new ones as they appear. Unfotunately ny scripting abilities aren't that hot. Likewise my C programming, however the google code is freely available. I'm sure this project would become even more awesome with a little more hacking. It would be nice, for example, to be able to set the duration for each cam. I just don't have the skills to do it myself..

Yeah, this a fantastic little project. I would like to see it incorporated into the Linux XScreensavers package one day as well.

Webcams have always intrigued me. It's like looking through a magic mirror into somewhere else. The palantir have nothing on this!

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