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Why aren’t you built in: Turn my camera phone in to a webcam

Categories: Ideas and rants
By: , IntoMobile
Tuesday, January 30th, 2007 at 12:08 PM

I just found out about this application called: Mobiola Web Camera. Here is the product description:

Turn your Symbian smartphone into a high-quality web camera and throw out your bulky USB webcam. Very simple to install and configure, Mobiola Web Camera consists of two software components: (1) a client application that resides on the phone, and (2) a webcam PC driver compatible with any Windows application that can receive video feeds from a web camera including Skype, Yahoo, MSN, AOL IM, ICQ messangers, www.YouTube.com, www.MySpace.com and www.grouper.com. Carry your webcam with you wherever you go and connect it to your laptop at anytime.

This is just one of those things that makes so much sense. It is yet another feature that will encourage users to hook their phone up to their computer.

The only thing I worry about is how exactly would you mount your phone to sit properly? From the looks of it this only does video too. Shame because I’m almost positively sure that the microphones in mobile phones are better than anything that comes with our computers.

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About The Author

Stefan Constantinescu

Stefan Constantinescu (@WhatTheBit on Twitter) has loved technology since as far back as he can remember. It started with computers, but in the past few years his passion has turned to mobile devices. As a mobile phone enthusiast who lives and breathes devices that connect to the internet, he knows he is not alone with this radical fascination of all things wireless. He is strongly opinionated and enjoys a good debate so leave comments in his posts and he’ll get back to you! Stefan began blogging as a hobby in the fall of 2006 and joined IntoMobile in the summer of 2007. Later he got a job at Nokia in March 2008, but as of June 2009 he has rejoined the IntoMobile team. He is currently based out of Helsinki, Finland.

  • Ricky Cadden

    I was one of the beta testers of the 3rd Edition Mobiola Webcam app, and I have to say it’s not fully developed yet. There’s no option to rotate the screen only 90 degrees, so the phone would lay on its side, as if taking a picture. And there’s no audio. I used this app with my 6682, though, and tried to use it with my N73. For some reason the pc-portion will not run on my computer, and repeated emails to the company yield nothing.

    But I agree, Stefan. You’d think this’d be a no-brainer.

  • James Whatley

    This is great – good stuff Stefan

  • Rajan

    I think you are very correct about the microphones of phones compared to the one with desktop.

    Rajan

  • ahmed anwer

    can i use it with my nokia 6300 ?

  • Hrishikesh

    which application can i use with my nokia 6020 to use it as a webcam?

  • chevy

    i cant get my samsung rant to work that way and i have a video chat with my family in jamaica on friday ….ugh im stuck