(Credit:
CNET / Josh Lowensohn)
The iPhone has many applications that let you view Web cams from around the world, but what about turning your phone into a remote camera of its own? A new app called IP Camera (warning: iTunes link) does just that. This $1.99 tool takes a photo from your iPhone's camera every 12 to 15 seconds, then posts it to a local Web page that can be accessed from other computers on the same network.
All that's needed for setup is to make sure your phone is on Wi-Fi, then to jot down the special local HTTP address it gives you. It will keep running until you quit the application manually or get a phone call; although like any good iPhone app it starts right back up when you're done with a call.
While there are very few bells and whistles, this app worked really well in my testing with an iPhone 3G. Although one big thing that's missing is a way to archive the photos it takes. You can temporarily stop its stream of photos, then save whichever one it's on, but it does not keep a "recents" on its Web page, or on your phone's camera roll.
I'd also like to see a way to change the frequency in which it takes photos, which could keep it from zapping too much juice if you're using it while disconnected from a power plug. And a way to run it with the display off would be nice too, since hitting the sleep button freezes the app into re-sending the same shot over and over again.
Tip: the iPod universal dock and iPhone 3G dock are both angled in such a way that makes it incredibly easy to perch your phone on a bookshelf or on top of a coworker's cube and get a great view. They'll never suspect you're watching their every move.
Related: DIY home surveillance with a Webcam
The IP Camera app turns your iPhone into a mini server, taking photos every 15 seconds and posting them almost-live to a Web page.
(Credit: CNET)
(Credit:
Crave UK)
IP Web cameras are great. Crave once used one to catch a cleaner who habitually left prank messages on our Dictaphone. Prior to our camera investment, we were clueless as to which idiot was recording himself shouting, "Ho ho ho, merry Christmas!" in an Uzbek accent in the middle of July. Needless to say, that particular chap no longer works here.
All those memories came flooding back when the Edimax IC-7000 IP camera arrived. It's better than your average Webcam, as its lens housing tilts and rotates to help you track a moving target. Plus it supports real-time video and audio via a Web browser and has infrared LED lights for night vision.
Like any decent IP camera, it has a motion detector feature that starts recording whenever anything crosses its path. There's also a 4x digital zoom, so you can get a little tighter on the pixellated 640 x 480 faces of the pranksterous gits trespassing on your property. There's an SD card slot for recording locally.
It all sounds good, but in reality the IC-7000 has a few problems. Installing the thing is like performing open-heart surgery--the software is buggy, crash-prone and downright unfriendly. The Web interface is more co-operative, but once you get it up and running, you'll hate the appallingly slow frame rate. It's supposed to cruise along at 30fps, but we didn't get anywhere near half that, meaning video was hella jerky. If a thief moves at anything approaching the pace of a doped-up sloth, the IC-7000 will just pick up a stuttery blur.
We wouldn't recommend it for anyone serious about security, or if high-quality motion capture is a priority, but if you're in dire need of a camera with a motorized pan/tilt feature it's fairly good value. It's yours for around 120 pounds, or about $237.
(Source: Crave UK)
Setting up a network-attached storage device (or NAS) is oftentimes a pain. Usually the most frustrating part is getting Windows to identify it and map it as a drive. This way, you can actually use it as it was intended, as a network storage device. In CNET Labs, I've come across many types of NAS management interfaces, be they Web-based or desktop applications. All have one thing in common in my experience: they are not the easiest devices to set up. For this reason, I was very impressed by a demonstration from Synology of its new, soon-to-be released Disk Station Manager 2.0 NAS Management Software (DSM). If you think this is a long-winded, hard-to-remember name, well, it is, but that's probably the only thing you'll have difficulty with.
Synology's new AJAX-based UI for its NAS devices.
(Credit: Synology)
First of all, DSM is a Linux-based application preloaded within the NAS device as a operating system that you can access and control via Internet Explorer 7 or Firefox. As the front-end user interface (UI) supports AJAX, unlike most Web-based UIs, allows for Windows-like functionality within the browser, including the ability to drag and drop as well as helpful Wizards that simplify the NAS management tasks. The interface is intuitive and very self-explanatory. Novice users guess fairly accurately what each button does, and after a few mouse clicks should have no problem understanding how things work. All this makes mapping a network drive to a Synology NAS device a no-brainer. While with most other NAS devices, the list of features stops here; with the DSM, it's just the beginning.
By supporting IP cameras, the DSM can also turn the NAS device into a surveillance station, which can automatically record video either by timer or by motion detection. This is an elaborate surveillance system that supports up to five cameras, and the recorded videos' quality is actually better than most tape-based surveillance systems. During the demonstration, the DSM showed multiple real-time monitoring screens using IE7 as its interface. With Firefox, it was only able to show a single monitoring screen. Synology says it is working on this browser inconsistency, and the company hopes it will be worked out by the time the software releases in April.
Another very interesting and useful feature of Synology's DSM is the Photo Station 3. With this feature, users can easily upload a folder of digital photos that Photo Station 3 organizes into a Web album. The album engine automatically creates the album interface and thumbnails. All you have to do is put photos in the designated folders on the NAS. You can then caption each photo and allow others of your choosing to view the photos online.
And that's not all, the Disk Station Manager 2.0 NAS Management Software also supports the following equally useful features:
- Sony PlayStation and Xbox 360 support: turning the NAS device into a digital media adapter
- Expandable RAID 5 volume: Allowing new hard drive to be added and expanded in RAID5 format on the fly.
- MySQL Support: Supporting MySQL version 5.0.51.
- HTTPs and FTP with SSL/TLS: Accessing the NAS drive from the Web is made more secure, even on the entry-level NAS models.
- Audio Station: Allows user to play audio files directly from the NAS or an iPod to USB speakers, with remote control.
Synology's comsumer-grade NAS: Disk Stationi DS107+
(Credit: Synology)From what I've seen so far, Synology's NAS device coupled with its DSM 2.0 software, by far offers the most features and best UI I've come across. At the time of writing this blog, I am also expecting an upgraded Disk Station DS107+--Synolgoy's consumer-grade NAS device--that supports most of the above features. So be on the lookout for our in-depth review on CNET.com.
All of Synology's NAS devices that ship in April or later will have this new interface preinstalled. Existing Synology devices can be upgraded to this new interface for free during this time too. The DSM software does not work with NAS devices from other vendors.
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