December 29 - 2:30pm EST   If you have one of the more recent iMac or MacBook models, you have a built-in webcam, embedded like a third eye into the top of your monitor. If you have a Mac Pro or a Mac mini though, you’ll need to buy a separate cam if you want to do video conferencing or chatting. Although designed specifically for Windows XP and Vista users, the Microsoft LifeCam Show is a webcam that also works flawlessly with any Mac. The most obvious difference between this one and others is its size. [full story]

December 5 - 3:00am EST   Electronics company Samsung has announced the latest addition to its line of CMOS image sensors, the S5K4AW, a 1/4-inch 1.2-Megapixel HD system-on-chip (SoC) unit. The embedded component is designed for notebook or desktop computers, with a focus on video capture for conferencing, web-based video sharing, or biometrics and security functions. The company claims that the sensor supports 720P HD video at 30 frames per second, and captures VGA-resolution streams at 60 frames per second. [full story]

July 9 - 10:20am EDT   Apple has today been granted three patents by the US Patent and Trademark Office, relating to several different technologies. The first of these is entitled "Video Conferencing Apparatus and Method," and covers a particular implementation of webcams. The patent makes specific reference to the defunct external iSight cameras, but also applies to the internal ones incorporated into modern Macs, and could theoretically be used to create an iPhone video camera. [full story]

July 7 - 4:55pm EDT   Every Mac comes with iChat, which allows for video conferencing over a high-speed Internet connection. Unfortunately, the Mac mini and Mac Pro lack a built-in iSight camera, so if you want to use video conferencing with these Mac models, you’ll need to buy a separate webcam such as Logitech’s QuickCam Vision Pro. [full story]