OK I'm trying this for the day - feedback welcomed etc.

Basically the smartphone is acting as a webcam, sending images back to my box at home over tcp/ip which is then uploading them onto internet (and capturing timelapse movie)

have a look at www.netheredge.com/mobilewebcam/

I will leave it running until I either run out of juice or the app on the back end crashes.

comments? thoughts?

[edit - page refresh on cam page set to 30s]

1st thought: Have you thought of putting in really tiny bookshelves in that alcove?

2nd thought: Are they precious original water colours and do they warrant this high level of security?

3rd thought: Best get back to work.

Hmm.. very interesting. What hardware / software are you using?

I hope you realise that a lot of people are going to be addicted to this by the end of the day.........me for one

Well, it's gonna cost me lol.

but I have set the picture capture to medium size low quality in an effort to save cash

seems to be working. I will leave it running. Post any comment you have on what you see - for the next 2 and a half hours it will be here in the office (highlight - ciggy break at 11)

Tony, I am using remote S60 pro, but the webcam ftp part is buggy so I am using a homegrown ftp routine to keep the latest pic uploaded, and snagit at home to capture a time lapse movie of the day.

It runs on symbian on the nokia 6600. It's a bit flaky and I am just waiting for it to fall over at home and bring an end to the experiment.

So far so good.

Well to say it seems a bit Heath Robinson, it's working remarkably well! There are loads of applications for this if you can fettle it. Well done!:thumbsup:

(I enjoyed the walk to work :))

How cool is that Phan !

I can't tell if the thing has stopped or you've fallen asleep at work !! ... oh no ... you moved !!

<perv mode>

I hope you're being careful not to accidently 'loose' your phone in the female toilets.

</perv_mode>

On a more serious note ... how does the phone transmit the data to your PC ?

Originally posted by Tony
Well to say it seems a bit Heath Robinson, it's working remarkably well! There are loads of applications for this if you can fettle it. Well done!:thumbsup:

(I enjoyed the walk to work :))

How were the pictures from the bus?

Unfortunately the s60 app can only save pics with the same filename, not a series, so I have to wait until I get home for the timelapse movie

(I left my screensaver on - oh b*gger! snagit will be capturing my screensaver at 2 frames a minute)

if anyone has the time will they copy and post some pics if they see a good one, as I will probably miss them.

I reckon the whole thing is going to cost in the region of £6 in GPRS fees - not bad for a days "outside broadcast"!

problems:
can't interrupt and then reestablish contact with server app at home. Cam must be restarted manually at server.

cannot make or accept telephone calls without breaking client server conn

dam phone won't stand up without help of blu tack

Another Problem:
It's breaking the terms of the official secrets act by publically transmitting 'live' pictures from inside of a Government Building.
I feel that if MI5 were to discover your actions you'd be arrested/ sacked on the spot.

However, a nice little feature. So glad I'm not in the building this week (nor visiting you downstairs)!:thumbsup:

Now what's David Andersons Email address again....? ;)

Originally posted by Jamie


<perv mode>

I hope you're being careful not to accidently 'loose' your phone in the female toilets.

</perv_mode>

On a more serious note ... how does the phone transmit the data to your PC ?

why do ppl want to watch women having a poo?

it uses tcp/ip over gprs jamie - custom program called s60 remote comes in two parts, client (on the phone) and server on my box at home. got some simple port forwarding to let the two communicate through the NAT router

It's on the move !!!!!!!

Phan's doing a runner ... ?

Originally posted by DaBouncer
Another Problem:
It's breaking the terms of the official secrets act by publically transmitting 'live' pictures from inside of a Government Building.
I feel that if MI5 were to discover your actions you'd be arrested/ sacked on the spot.

However, a nice little feature. So glad I'm not in the building this week (nor visiting you downstairs)!:thumbsup:

Now what's David Andersons Email address again....? ;)

Nah, no sweat, I have read the whole OSA as it relates to this, and since anyone can look in this office from the window - it's not priveleged info. Nor can anyone see my screen upon which all my official documents reside.

And anyway, its the coppers who'd come and haul me away. M15 have got better things to be doing (like snooping on mobile telecoms).

However, I have a good friend who works for Liberty Human RIghts so I'm hoping she'll get me out on appeal when she receives her silks (in about 10 years lol )

hehe you rather freaked rach out with your email!

LOL.... excellent.... I used my alternative email address just for that very thing!

Excellent! Worked like a charm then :thumbsup:

What time is lunch Phan? we all want some..lol..oh and tell that bloke the other side to give all of his fans a wave...lol, shame about his tie though.

hehe , colleague says "#@!%"

Its actually a very nice tie.

Lunch at 12 sharp

Tell him it was a very noncholant wave...still not sure about the tie though......lol

Tell your colleague to get his hair cut....

...and you could do with a shave too - you scruffy b*gger.

;) :thumbsup:

Cool app though.

[EDIT - Oi - what's he doing with that banana under his desk?]


Nomme

hehe he says his girlfriend bought him the tie, and its not worth his life to brook any criticism of it!

Right then, Lunch time I think. Stay tuned for more riveting mobile phan-o-cam-o-fun !

Any requests for a spot to spend lunch and point the cam.

I am not going to my favoured spot or you'll all find out where it is and its a loosely guarded secret.

Your photos are over exposed when you go outside.

Nomme

Originally posted by Phanerothyme
How were the pictures from the bus?

I reckon the whole thing is going to cost in the region of £6 in GPRS fees - not bad for a days "outside broadcast"!



How much data does it shift?

Sure I have some spare GPRS sims around here....

LOL!

This is the most fun ive had all day :lol:

http://members.lycos.co.uk/arepeejee/phancam1.jpg

why do your security guards look like Dr.Evil? :lol:

LMAO Alan n Brian (http://www.mobileunlocked.co.uk/alnbri.gif) (SCH Security) famous!!! If only they knew !:thumbsup:

Hey ...that's not fair on a lovely ethical company like Cadbury Schweppes........true but not fair

not sure what the overexposure probs are, but they are there. I think the electronic iris is very slow, and when moving about, momentary shadows send it reeling.

amazement over amazement, I seem to be able to view the webcam on the phone thru the browser.. to check the output as it were.

so bookey, you mean you may have a way for me to do this for less than £1.20 a Mb? this think does about 10kb a minute up and 10kb an hour down.

mind you we could do bigger, higher quality faster refresh. but I can't afford it with this O2 'deal' (captive market hijack) :)

Ok so another fun afternoon in the office working on state secrets.

RPG are you mirroring or what? Your site is blocked by my thoughtful employers as possibly leading to non-approved thought patterns.

Thanks Phan!

Your little camera is making the afternoon go much quicker here!

:thumbsup:

Originally posted by Phanerothyme

so bookey, you mean you may have a way for me to do this for less than £1.20 a Mb? this think does about 10kb a minute up and 10kb an hour down.

mind you we could do bigger, higher quality faster refresh. but I can't afford it with this O2 'deal' (captive market hijack) :)



Lowest I can go is 0.25p per MB

£0.25p a Mb?

could you explain how, and in detail please?

edit - looks like the server app finally fell over at 14:12 then

i'm bored now - wot is going to happen?

Moonie

Seems to be stuck on a piece of paper....

Originally posted by Phanerothyme

edit - looks like the server app finally fell over at 14:12 then

its stopped, you can stop looking now. It stopped an hour ago....

Technical Hitch.

Nah, I wasnt mirroring I just uploaded a picture id captured lol

On your PC at home ... does it save all the frames ?

And could you make a movie (AVI / MPG) out of them ?

Originally posted by Jamie
On your PC at home ... does it save all the frames ?

And could you make a movie (AVI / MPG) out of them ?

wayyyyy ahead of you there jamie.

sadly the view is obscured by runtime error notification after about 11:40

app went on capturing and uploading though

I'll trillian you a copy

(10mb)

Might do another on one Friday (day off, more interesting/challenging conditions.)

any suggestions (some kind of glare hood maybe)?

can you not change the settings on the camera?

well the software uses the nokia API to access the camera on its own terms.

But I can probably use snagit and debabelizer to postprocess the image and upload it as required, providing the postprocessing is the same every time (i.e levels/curves/etc)

its handy to leave the app to do the ftp, but its a sorely lacking webcam ftp.

ok running again - schedule

7pm bathtime

8:30pm drumming

00:00 back home again


see how it goes
http://www.netheredge.com/mobilewebcam/

- slight hitch - tweaking. keep trying fixed in 5 mins

Come on Phan...there was more life in your workmates hair than there is on this now....lol

Well I missed it. when are you doing it again?

right now!
strawbs and cream yum

There is an apparition of a young child on the web cam. Believe it to be haunted !

Ooooh its almost as scary as Ju On : The Grudge [very weird film !] :P

7pm bathtime?? i am getting worried.

Moon

its gone again, will keep working on it back up in a few....(must persevere)

i'm quite impressed with that Phan.
I think i heard the idea mooted about somewhere a while ago, maybe on the regiser, but it's the first implementation of it i've seen.

I might try and knock up my own software to do the same as an experiment. Would be fun to try anyway... Hmm, need api to access the camera, some ftp code i've used before to upload it, and tomcat running at home as it alread does... Could add zip compression in if I had room to reduce the data volume, but then i'll need some triggered process at home to unzip it.

ok running again, I have had to drop the size/quality as it kept overloading the proggy on the server side.

[edit]hehe look at these stats (http://www.netheredge.com/mobilewebcam/camarc.jpg)

Not much happening on the cat flap front.

But a great idea!

Your are wasted working in the civil service Phan!!!

This is better than Big Brother!

The suspense is killing me!

We're all waiting for it, but if a cat *does* come through that door, we're all going to jump in shock...

Pity you havent got some sort of motion/infra red detector set up so you can take a pic just as the moggy shoves head through door

Could be good for home security applications etc. Doubtless someone has a patent on this already :P

Originally posted by rtapper
Pity you havent got some sort of motion/infra red detector set up so you can take a pic just as the moggy shoves head through door

Could be good for home security applications etc. Doubtless someone has a patent on this already :P


Nokia beat you to it - http://www.nokia.co.uk/nokia/0,,18287,00.html

Got one set up in the office. :)

Originally posted by rtapper
Pity you havent got some sort of motion/infra red detector set up so you can take a pic just as the moggy shoves head through door

Could be good for home security applications etc. Doubtless someone has a patent on this already :P

I have a proggy called Mona, which is a motion detector that can see in infra red. On detecting movement it can sound an alarm, take a picture, send an email, an sms and an mms.

people are starting to realise the possibilities offered by a pocket computer that has two kinds of radio connectivity a camera and a max memory of around half a gig (not forgetting the handy phone application that you can use to call people with, although I rarely do)

Only problem is, if using it as a security device I would say there is a high likelihood it being stolen itself.

Mikey, you're too kind. I'm trying to save them £50k a year by showing them how to automate my job (and that of my 3 colleagues) , but they won't listen :)

So how is the experiment going? Is it halted until cheaper GPRS solution is found? Excellent work by the way takes a lot to impress me but this sure did !!

Thanks March

Well, I have been messing with the setup to see how I can avoid the software crashing to make it reliable enough to leave it on all day.

In the end it ran for about 6 hours before falling over irrevocably.

I think I need to use the Web Citrix GoToMyPC application to control the home machine from my mobile.

THen I can deal with flaky software on the move, change ftp settings etc.

Anyway. I will be trying again, all day tomorrow as I am not at work and you will be able to watch me take the cat to the vet, feed the child breakfast etc etc.

Should be fun. Also trying to work out how to archive the images so they are easily available in a slideshow.

Maybe a simple php page that checks the dir and counts the pics, and then presents them in a gallery/slideshow?

Might be up late :)

Thanks for the feedback everyone. Not sure why I am doing this other than a) I love a challenge b)It's fun c)It goes some way to justifying the outrageous sums spent on gadgets and IT.

edit - bookey what about those cheap mobile data sims

Ooh, you use GotoMyPC.

Lovely piece of software :thumbsup:

Originally posted by RPG
Ooh, you use GotoMyPC.

Lovely piece of software :thumbsup:

nope not yet.

I am not the biggest fan of Citrix in the world.

I take it you are being sarcastic? or? I have no opinion on GoToMyPC because I haven't tested it, would be interested in any opinions of that too.

lol no sarcasm!

Ive used it yeah and I think its amazing :D There is a very slight lag on it, but the technology is really useful. Esp. if you want to scare people by turning winamp on in the room while they think the PC is on its own :lol:

Phan,

I saw this (http://news.com.com/Microsoft+patents+body+power/2100-1014_3-5244766.html?tag=nefd.top).... and I thought of you!

cheers
Nomme

Originally posted by RPG
lol no sarcasm!

Ive used it yeah and I think its amazing :D There is a very slight lag on it, but the technology is really useful. Esp. if you want to scare people by turning winamp on in the room while they think the PC is on its own :lol:

I am interested in it because it uses the web as a in interface, making it accessible (hopefully) from the Opera Web Browser bundled with the phone.

Something like PC anywhere or Carbon Copy don't have symbian versions yet (no flash player for Symbian yet either boo!), so GoToMyPC is about the only option. Pricey Service though.

Well, I shall complete the free 60 minute/1 month trial when I get home, could be useful if the mobile webcam server app falls over again.

Also working on some kind of clip/harness so I can wear the phone.

I'll post a new thread tomorrow AM once I have it sorted.

what about a loop of material tied to it? Wear it around your neck?

Originally posted by RPG
what about a loop of material tied to it? Wear it around your neck?

It will bounce around on my chest bruising me a lot (chunky phone)

I want a bracket that I can securely clip to my clothing and that will stand up at a suitable angle on a flat surface.

I'm working with polymorph to make something suitable, maybe with a big ass bulldog clip embedded in it.. i dunno, something for me to think about whilst I sit at work until 7pm tonight.....

ahh, fair enough lol.

What phone is it?

Its a Nokia 6600.

Anyone else have a smartphone (symbian)? what are your experiences of it.

Still cant get 02 to make it send MMS messages. any clues anyone?

Originally posted by Phanerothyme
Its a Nokia 6600.

Anyone else have a smartphone (symbian)? what are your experiences of it.

Still cant get 02 to make it send MMS messages. any clues anyone?

I have a smart phone ... *rubs hands with excitment* ...

Taken delivery of a lovely new SE p900 this morning ... and I've fiddled around with that much I'm suprised it still works !!!

Experiences so far ... well ... it's shiney and lovely ... and I can't wait to dive deeper ...

yum.

jamie - take a look at :

www.handango.com
www.symbos.com

amongst others

Mmmm nice cat flap

do you like it? why?

Originally posted by Phanerothyme
Its a Nokia 6600.

Anyone else have a smartphone (symbian)? what are your experiences of it.

Still cant get 02 to make it send MMS messages. any clues anyone?

On 02 you need to change to a MMS enabled tariff.
Is it 02 online or offline?

sorted it thanks bookey.

Its an 02 contract resold by genesis comms (aka dixons), some business tariff or another (free minutes and texts to all networks)

, but what I really want to know is how to get data for 25p/Mb.

?

Very good application of the technology. But isn't it a little bit imoral to film people illicitly and post it on the 'net?

It's a little bit different from a webcam, the interaction between one person and others is shown, not just a shot of a scene. Plus you were shooting in priviate places not open to the public.


Top experiment and don't take notice of anything I go on about. No one else does ;)

Originally posted by Hal9001
Very good application of the technology. But isn't it a little bit imoral to film people illicitly and post it on the 'net?

It's a little bit different from a webcam, the interaction between one person and others is shown, not just a shot of a scene. Plus you were shooting in priviate places not open to the public.


Top experiment and don't take notice of anything I go on about. No one else does ;)

Everywhere I go that is not a public place, I ask people whether they mind. common courtesy. no-one, yet, has made any objection, and most are very happy with the idea.

but yes, its more like wandering around with a videocam