From Wikipedia, “Superficially, IRL cars closely resemble those of other open-wheeled formula racing cars, with front and rear wings and prominent airboxes.”

From autospectator.com, “The 2007 Indianapolis 500 on ESPN on ABC was the first IndyCar Series event to be televised in HD, and all cameras used in ESPN’s IndyCar Series coverage in 2008 will be HD, including in-car cameras and those used in the pits and for other points of view. Included will be a new, high-tech HD onboard camera that can provide a rotating 360-degree view.”

Camfrog is not a Web 2.0 app but instead requires a small download of about 5 mb. You get to view one chat person’s window with free version. For a one-time $49.95 fee you get to open up to 100 windows in addition to other benefits like sorting and searching for users. I have a hefty broadband connection and semi-fast machine and can get about 65 windows without to much degradation in movements.

I have seen rooms with up to 1000 users and while the chat typing moves fast, you have options to block users and bots to slow it down. No webcam needed to watch or chat either 1 to 1 or 1 to many in a chat room. Add video conferencing to your website.
You can add robots to greet users, posts ads or hold trivia games.

One of the features I like is the hierarchical structure in which colors denote a pecking order of sorts. Red - owner, green - operator, blue- friend. Each have more user rights then black. Bold are pro version users.

So if you have a virtual yearning for new friends, stuck on intimacy issues, are homebound for a spell and/or are lurking for a safe-sex experience, Camfrog might be your cup-o-tease.

All criticisms aside, it’s a reality now with a new site called Seero. And yes, there is an excellent application of this: event-based video. Imagine if you wanted to see exactly where the America’s Cup finalist is in relation to the mark, or how far out on the lava fields the women’s leader in the Hawaii Ironman World Championship is. And you could drill down on your favorite lifecaster as they rock to that sold out rock concert.

Now all we have to do is get the major broadcasters and corporate event sponsors to allow non-licensed parties to broadcast and record their events.

And yet the lack of a common language prevents us from knowing the world as one. Whole continents of cyberspace remain intellectually, scientifically, culturally and socially walled off as a result. Think of the advancements made by shared experience and knowledge. Think of cybersurfing all the nooks and crannies of an unrestricted electronic frontier.

We have been using visual symbols and art to communicate for thousands of years. One billion people share the Chinese logogram yet are bereft a common tongue. Hieroglyphs were born of preliterate artistic traditions. Shouldn’t we seek a common ground on the WWW and include a preliterate feature? Why be denied the visual benefits of a cybernetic world because of a written word? An International iconic visual web might make it possible to navigate any page, any language in any country. Another idea taking form is the UNL Programme whose goal is to develop and promote a multilingual communication platform. The time has come.

“The social value of the Web [WWW] is that it enables human communication, commerce, and opportunities to share knowledge.” -W3.org

If we do life in the Information Age in which we engineer and manipulate data, lets use the “wisdom of the crowds” to work on communicating as one. A world disconnected and divided helps no one. We need to find a ways for everyone to join in hands, converse and understand each other.

To mimic an acclamation from the seventies “I’d like to teach the world to surf in perfect harmony”

If you have questions, quibbles or comments, please join in… thanks!

Have you have ever envied a hedge fund manager or stock broker with wide screens galore or security when they pan, tilt and zoom all their CCTVs on multiple screens? My little setup with three flat screen monitors makes me feel like a successful daytrader on Jolt cola. But instead of hedge funds or mall shoppers on my screen, I am in charge of watching the world while I work!  And I enjoy minding other people’s beeswax.

Right now you can pickup a 19″ flat widescreen for about $150. If not keep your eye out on TigerDirect.com, Geeks.com or my favorite NewEgg.com for deals. Your Sunday paper will have deals also. My logic is that the savings on tax negates the shipping when ordering online.  Another rule of thumb is that if I don’t save more than $20 of what I can buy locally, I don’t do online purchasing.  Invariably something needs returning and locally is always easier. 

So once you’ve got your monitors match them with a few inexpensive PCI cards at $50 a piece or use just one with a mid level AGP dual head card.  I use the midlevel gaming Radeon 7600GT video card with 2 DVI video ports that costs about $86. I use one DVI port and I use a dongle for the analog jack for the second monitor.  If you go with an older inexpensive card make sure it will drive a large LCD wide-screen. When you start to get up into the 1680 x 1050 resolution range, an inexpensive PCI card might not have the horsepower (RAM) to drive it. You don’t want to have shadows on your type or images.

My setup has an AOC 22″ widescreen and a Scepture 19″ widescreen on my main machine. Then I have a Mac laptop sans the top with a Dell monitor.  Other than video cards and drivers, it’s no problem mixing and matching monitors with hardware and OS these days.

My setup shown in the upper left video uses a Ergotron Triple-Monitor Desk Stand that costs $299 if you really want to feel important. A lost cost alternative is to build a PVC tube rack with galvanized iron brackets for less than 5 dollars. For my setup at home I built a wooden shelf over my desk and attached the monitors to that.

After setting up your hardware you can find all the software to watch multiple cams free online. I use earthcam.com for the high traffic cams like Times Square and Miami Beach. Their java applet won’t let you maximize more than one window at a time so I use 4 separate browsers. I use Firefox, IE7, Netscape, Opera and Flock all at once.

If you have video chat app like camfrog ($50) you can open up to 100 streaming windows at once. Now that’s what I call multitasking.

Good luck and feel free to contribute with questions, quibbles or comments. Thanks!