The world's oldest webcam is going offline after 25 years
After a quarter of a century of almost uninterrupted live images, FogCam is retiring. The oldest webcam on the Internet will be switched off by its operators at the end of August. The swan song of an Internet veteran.
Jeff Schwartz and Dan Wong, two former students of San Francisco State University, have reached their decision: FogCam, the oldest webcam in the world, is ending its service after 25 years in operation. The two Americans announced their decision via Twitter, thanking their viewers and the university for its support. Their reason for pulling the plug is apparently a lack of space: the university tolerates the camera, but doesn't want to promote it. A good location is vital to the camera, which it currently doesn't have. Therefore, at the end of August, the camera's days of uninterrupted streaming are officially over.
Not the first...
With 25 years of service, the American webcam beat out another Internet legend. The Coffee Pot Cam at Cambridge University went online a year earlier (1993). Fun fact: the Coffee Pot Cam was created because Quentin Stafford-Fraser, a scientist employed at the university, wanted to check coffee availability from a distance. The webcam showed him whether the coffee jug was full or whether he could skip a trip to the kitchen.
In 2012 Stafford-Fraser told the BBC that it just as well could've been a still – the jug was always either full or empty. The rare moments of a half-full/empty jug were especially interesting. Him and his colleagues began guessing whether the jug was being filled up or whether an empty jug would appear in the next frame.
Although the camera – or the coffee jug and the room in which it stood – became so famous that even tourists on a campus tour wanted to catch a glimpse of it, the service was taken offline in 2001. Its coding had become too complicated to support, making continued streaming impossible.
...but the oldest
With this in mind, FogCam's 25-year lifespan seems even more impressive and remarkable. Many see it as a relic and legend of the Internet. After all, it survived the early days of the Internet and the switch to Web 2.0 completely unscathed. Thanks to social media, the camera then experienced its second spring and became an active webcam once more. And now a piece of internet history comes to an abrupt end – many a Internet historian is shedding a tear.
If you want to experience the last days of this quarter-centennial cam, you can do so here. You, as well as many of FogCam's loyal viewers, certainly won't know what to do with your time after the shutdown. So here's an alternative straight from London. The camera, which is pointed towards the pedestrian crossing on Abbey Road, regularly causes traffic jams – mostly when Beatles fans are blocking the zebra crossing for a photo.
When I'm not stuffing my face with sweets, you'll catch me running around in the gym hall. I’m a passionate floorball player and coach. On rainy days, I tinker with my homebuilt PCs, robots or other gadgets. Music is always my trusted companion. I also enjoy tackling hilly terrain on my road bike and criss-crossing the country on my cross-country skis.