Friday, February 17, 2006

And Don't Slouch When I'm Talking to You

New fangled technology. Today, the company passed out a bunch of little webcams as a test of personal-level video conferencing. So the idea is, if I pick up the phone and the coworker on the other side has the same setup, a popup of the person's picture instantly pops up on my screen. And the picture quality is like watching a movie; super sharp and real time. Pretty neat. It also supports multi-user video conferencing. I haven't used it yet, but I imagine it'll look like this.

Inevitably the initial Christmas new-toy feel wore off. The little globular webcam perched on my monitor now seems to be LOOKING at me constantly. Am I working on that budget excel, or am I really checking sports scores? The Webcam knows. Am I ignoring that phone call and pretending to be away so I can eat my sandwich? The Webcam knows. And its blinky green LED expresses its disapproval.

I suspect that the little bugger will send a silent scream for help were I to move it from atop my monitor to a more convenient locale -- the back of my third desk drawer where the empty CD cases, dried-out ballpoint pens, leftover plastic forks and packs of ketchup are haphazardly stored. But it is too late. Even if the compliance gremlins come knocking to check up on the little web-Snitch, I have an almost indistinguishable copy to take its place on the monitor!

1 comment:

Marika said...

Oooh...we've just installed this between our Sydney & Melbourne offices and it's still in the 'novelty' stage. The conference room is next door to my office and all day long there's a steady stream of Admin Assistants popping in for a look. All they seem to do is call the other Admin Assistants in Sydney and stellar conversations like "Ooooooh, look! Its Erica! That's a nice top Erica! And look, Ann's just walked in! Look, she's got her lunch." They haven't quite grasped the concept that it's not a one-way mirror a la CSI interrogation room. The other person can ALSO SEE YOU!!!

I understand your completely irrational and extremely paranoid fear though - I'd feel the same way if it was there 8 hours a day.

 

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