"Dad, open the webcam App on your iPhone. We are at the Tommy Trojan statue at SC and we are going to wave to you!"
At that moment my son and his family were 1,100 miles away from here, on a trip to Southern California, and they were at his and his wife's old Alma Mater university. One of the live webcams available on this application on the iPhone is a surveillance camera on a rooftop trained on the university's mascot, the statue of "Tommy Trojan". We had bookmarked that site, just in case a moment like this turned up ( parents get sentimental, ok?). We had used it once before to see our daughter and her family when they had been re-visiting their university.
"OK, we see you" and on cue the family waved. For a moment, that "wish you were here" message millions have written with some nostalgia on countless postcards seemed to be fulfilled. We were there, seeing what they were seeing, in real time. Well, perhaps with a lag of less than 3 seconds, the refresh rate for that camera, but close enough.
And there's better to come by way of connecting socially. Already there are streaming videos from webcams all over the world. Sometimes late at night we watch the changing scene: traffic, people strolling, stopping to talk, going into and out of buildings in the middle of the day almost half a world away. Right here on our iPhone or laptop. If you coordinate the date and time in advance, you could even see friends wave to you from the deck of their cruise ship as it waits in a lock on the Panama Canal, and experience the context in which they are.
Trivial? In the grand scale of things, perhaps. But it may also be priceless, as we are reminded in that wellknown credit card commercial.
For us seniors, as pedestrian as this technology is, it is still tinged with awe. When we left to go overseas to study, or even on a vacation, we were essentially cut off from those we left back home, our almost sole connection the mail that took at least two weeks between an event or a question and the feedback.
2 comments:
Louis,
This reminds me of the times we had on the webcam between us, you in the US and Pak Idrus and me in Malaysia. Suddenly we find distance is no hindrance at all for us to feel close to each other.
Hello Zawi,
Indeed.
I sometimes watch a live webcam in the Cameron Highlands. From my computer here I can manipulate that webcam to zoom in or out or to pan 180 degrees or shift its perspective.
If you are ever up there, wave: I might be watching :)
Post a Comment