From the Big Bang to the Space Station, from gorillas to monks to students to artists, LIVE webcams around the world bring visitors close to the exotic, the inspiring, and the extraordinary.
June 28, 2007 (Press Release) --
What do penguins in Antarctica, monks in Ireland, gorillas in Spain, craftsmen in Borneo, women washing clothes in France, Polish veterinarians, German scientists, Japanese kindergarteners and truckers in the U.S. all have in common?
They're all featured in live streaming video on a new website sponsored by the World Mind Network, an organisation which seeks to link people everywhere through internet technology.
The site's founders were moved to create it by the writings of philosophers like James Lovelock and Teilhard de Chardin, who posited that improved communications were making the whole Earth something like a vast inter-connected brain. They saw that the Internet was making this more and more obvious.
They found themselves intrigued by the explosion of webcams worldwide, and the latest technological improvements which make live streaming video available even in hostile environments like the Arctic and Papua New Guinea.
Historically, webcams have generally been devoted to two things: porn, and teenagers ogling each other while chatting online. Why not, thought World Mind Network, use the technology to display worthier things that are hardly ever seen by anyone, even the most experienced tourist? Why not publicize worthy research projects, age-old lifestyles, new art forms, unknown animals, and tribal cultures on the verge of extinction?
They performed an exhaustive search, and found fascinating webcams in the strangest places. The requirements for inclusion on the site are that whatever is seen has to be live streaming video wherever possible and must be socially, artistically, environmentally, historically, or scientifically significant.
With such an embarassment of riches to choose from, a scheme was needed to organize the webcam feeds. They decided upon a chronological plan, given that most of the things that have ever happened in history are still happening today. Thus, the first link is an audio file converted from the still evident background microwave radiation of the original Big Bang. The next shows what the sun is doing now, including sunspot activity; the next shows live growing bacteria, and then on up the scale of Life to human beings, passing fish, pandas and gorillas on the way.
The webcams showing human activity are divided into several categories: Schools from all over the world, including Japan, Macedonia, Hungary, and Nepal; Intentional Communities (communes), Scientific projects, Fair Trade workshops, Renewable Energy and Sustainable Agriculture, mobile webcams, and Modern Life. This last is a catchall category that includes live video from a hairdresser in Japan, a wedding chapel in Scotland, a veterinary hospital in Poland, a laundromat in France, a Florist's shop in Switzerland, and a potter in Missouri.
You can see a wind farm in Finland, and note in real time how its power output changes with the breezes. You can view monks at Clonard monastery in Ireland praying and chanting. A charity in Texas has a webcam placed behind the windshield of its truck, so that you can accompany the driver as he makes his rounds among the homeless. There is even live audio (no video yet) from the International Space Station.
Plans are to expand the site to include hundreds of cameras.
The site is strictly for education and entertainment. There is nothing to buy.
You can see the initial results at WorldMindNetwork.net You can contact them for more information at worldbrainsite@gmail.com You can call them at US (626) 230-8862.
They're all featured in live streaming video on a new website sponsored by the World Mind Network, an organisation which seeks to link people everywhere through internet technology.
The site's founders were moved to create it by the writings of philosophers like James Lovelock and Teilhard de Chardin, who posited that improved communications were making the whole Earth something like a vast inter-connected brain. They saw that the Internet was making this more and more obvious.
They found themselves intrigued by the explosion of webcams worldwide, and the latest technological improvements which make live streaming video available even in hostile environments like the Arctic and Papua New Guinea.
Historically, webcams have generally been devoted to two things: porn, and teenagers ogling each other while chatting online. Why not, thought World Mind Network, use the technology to display worthier things that are hardly ever seen by anyone, even the most experienced tourist? Why not publicize worthy research projects, age-old lifestyles, new art forms, unknown animals, and tribal cultures on the verge of extinction?
They performed an exhaustive search, and found fascinating webcams in the strangest places. The requirements for inclusion on the site are that whatever is seen has to be live streaming video wherever possible and must be socially, artistically, environmentally, historically, or scientifically significant.
With such an embarassment of riches to choose from, a scheme was needed to organize the webcam feeds. They decided upon a chronological plan, given that most of the things that have ever happened in history are still happening today. Thus, the first link is an audio file converted from the still evident background microwave radiation of the original Big Bang. The next shows what the sun is doing now, including sunspot activity; the next shows live growing bacteria, and then on up the scale of Life to human beings, passing fish, pandas and gorillas on the way.
The webcams showing human activity are divided into several categories: Schools from all over the world, including Japan, Macedonia, Hungary, and Nepal; Intentional Communities (communes), Scientific projects, Fair Trade workshops, Renewable Energy and Sustainable Agriculture, mobile webcams, and Modern Life. This last is a catchall category that includes live video from a hairdresser in Japan, a wedding chapel in Scotland, a veterinary hospital in Poland, a laundromat in France, a Florist's shop in Switzerland, and a potter in Missouri.
You can see a wind farm in Finland, and note in real time how its power output changes with the breezes. You can view monks at Clonard monastery in Ireland praying and chanting. A charity in Texas has a webcam placed behind the windshield of its truck, so that you can accompany the driver as he makes his rounds among the homeless. There is even live audio (no video yet) from the International Space Station.
Plans are to expand the site to include hundreds of cameras.
The site is strictly for education and entertainment. There is nothing to buy.
You can see the initial results at WorldMindNetwork.net You can contact them for more information at worldbrainsite@gmail.com You can call them at US (626) 230-8862.
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