A web camera is an input device that allows capturing video, specially designed for the transmission of video over a network or the Internet. Webcams are usually small, no bigger than a fist, and plug into a USB or FireWire port; many are even built directly into the computer monitor.
They differ from camcorders in that they do not have their own storage medium for the video they capture. They must send the video, usually by USB, to the computer and it will process it. Also the image quality of a web camera is usually lower than that of a digital camcorder.
Other names by which a web camera is known: network camera or webcam.
For more information read: Webcam.
The curious anecdote of the first web camera in history
What is considered the first web camera in history is the XCoffee (also known as Trojan Room coffee pot) started in 1991 and connected to the internet in November 1993. The web camera monitored a coffee shop in a basement at Cambridge University, thus allowing people to know when coffee was or was not available. The image was 128 x 128 pixels.
The press found out about this and the website where the image was displayed was visited 150 thousand times.
They decided to commercialize it and in 1992 the first web camera called XCam went on sale.
This camera stopped working on August 22, 2001.
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