{"id":40932,"date":"2009-11-12T15:35:05","date_gmt":"2009-11-12T20:35:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.crunchgear.com\/?p=123944"},"modified":"2009-11-12T15:35:05","modified_gmt":"2009-11-12T20:35:05","slug":"vitamin-d-turns-your-webcam-into-a-virtual-doorman","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/40932","title":{"rendered":"Vitamin D turns your webcam into a virtual doorman"},"content":{"rendered":"

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When I bought a webcam for my front door – mine is the Linksys WVC54GCA<\/a> – I was faced with a predicament. The built-in motion detection software bombarded my email inbox with images of an empty frame. It was set off by the motion of a leaf or a reflection, rendering one of the most important aspects – notification of trespass – ineffective.<\/p>\n

At an impasse, I decided to build a cyberbiomimetic AI using a cockroach brain and a vat of amino acids. The resulting system, while effective at spotting intruders, eventually threatened to become self-aware and so I had to shut it down. Finally, I tried Vitamin D.<\/A> Problem, as they say, solved.<\/p>\n

Vitamin D is a three-step piece of software. You point it at a webcam on your network (it’s compatible with a few models right now) and tell it what to do when it sees evil people encroaching on your turf. Be they the UPS guy or brain-eating zombies, the system will record a clip of their activity and can even notify you via email and an audible chime when it senses movement. In short, it allows you to create a very powerful security system in a few minutes.<\/p>\n

You can add multiple cameras and the system grabs only the most important parts of the day, ensuring you don’t miss a single entry or exit. Because it’s compatible a number of webcams, including webcams over a network.<\/p>\n

I was able to connect my webcam and start recording in less than a minute. It’s a great feeling to know that the webcam has suddenly become more than a way to watch your front step. Sadly, you need a PC or Mac running the Vitamin D software to record 24\/7 video but if you set this up on an always attended-to system it makes for an interesting and valuable upgrade.<\/p>\n

It’s free right now and you can download the beta here<\/A>. A subscription version will be sold in early 2010.<\/p>\n

Note: My webcam is sideways because that’s how I mounted it in my window. Long story.<\/p>\n

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When I bought a webcam for my front door – mine is the Linksys WVC54GCA – I was faced with a predicament. The built-in motion detection software bombarded my email inbox with images of an empty frame. It was set off by the motion of a leaf or a reflection, rendering one of the most […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-40932","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40932","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40932"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40932\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40932"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=40932"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40932"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}