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NEE-01 PEGASO http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/N... live streamed 720p video early May 2013 through EarthCam http://www.earthcam.com/world/...

Don't the trees block a lot more of the road than they did then?

There's a webcam mounted inside the box near the window if anyone want's to check out the view (the pile of boxes placed there to represent the one's he's said to have placed there to rest the rifle on).

Here are some webcams set up. Nothing too interesting at the moment.
http://aws1.earthcam.com/?c=tsstreet

would be neat if we could take the times square video, and set it as desktop background :)

yeah that or World Telecams.com or EarthCam.com or SecurityProShop.com (where you can buy these internet enabled remote/PTZ cams etc.).... So this project really is nothing new... right? The running word for these is "web-cam-attraction-system" ....

The Camera Watch project is part of our Surveillance of Surveillances ( SOS) effort. We are constructing a repository of links to publicly available on-line webcams, where the webcams of interest are those that observe the public in public spaces. At present, we estimate there are about 10,000 such cameras displaying public places in the United States. Our goals are to assess the number and nature of such cameras, explore potential uses, and analyze and propose related policies and best practices.

I don't usually like to downplay a research project without hearing it through, and/or talking with the project members, but I'm going to make an exception this time.

From the project page, it looks like a lot of valuable time and resources are being wasted on reinventing the wheel. Many databases of online webcams already exist. EarthCam is just one of them. This is another, as was posted in an earlier comment.

Moreover, surveillance cameras act as deterrents for a reason: their presence. A would be criminal is less likely to commit a crime, if he/she knows that a camera is watching/recording his/her moves. Then it doesn't matter if somebody is actually watching the video, or whether it is being recorded for later auditing, or neither. This is the reason why you see " Warning Surveillance Cameras in USE" Notices at many gas stations/etc. It doesn't really matter whether the camera is being watched or not.

Concealed surveillance cameras on the other hand, are meant to actually catch criminals instead of acting as deterrents. They usually require action on part of the surveillance team in order to identify criminals, or even detect suspicious activity in the first place. To prove useful, such a camera would require constant/reliable monitoring, for which dedicated teams are hired anyway. People would not want to depend on a random number of remote users to monitor such camers.

So, to end the rant, I think the concept of using webcams for any purpose other than entertainment/traffic monitoring etc is inherently flawed, and hence QED.

Not to mention if it ever became popular, you'd have to deal with some pretty serious bandwidth demands since you'd be transmitting video to a whole bunch of viewers. As other posts have pointed out, it's barely been a few minutes since the post and the link site's already slashdotted, and that's just text ... I'd imagine something like the Times Square intersection live video feed would probably go down even faster.

That's without even considering "digital vandalism" in the form of DOS attacks ...

To monitor the health of a penguin, a self-respecting geek would set up something much like this.

"Your lack of vision disturbe me."

yes... I have visions. Visions of decades long rebuild projects in the heart of manhattan that reduce the already 30 mile an hour average traffic to 15mph, that increase commute times and drive up cab fees to absurd levels. YES! The glorious white elephat visions of bloated disorganized public infrastucture projects that go on aimlessly for years, sucking up billions in tax dollars and showing little in return. The endless political bickering that will ensure the project is never really completed. Oh! the Visions I see!

Yeah, and in case you hadn't noticed, NY is already Disneyfied enough thank you without the "Epcot Ideal" you so childishly whine for it to become.

If you're interested in seeing the coming apocolypse for yourself, check out the chaos in every timezone.