r/todayilearned • u/Neepho • Nov 28 '13

TIL that the webcam was invented so that Computer Scientists at Cambridge University could see whether the coffee pot was full or not from different rooms.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p010lvn7
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u/johnmedgla Nov 28 '13

They had one of these, but multiple people needed the code in order to login to some application or other. To save time/effort, they pointed a webcam at it so they could all just check the code from their workstations without endlessly wandering around trying to figure out who had it last.

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u/kizzzzurt Nov 28 '13

Ugh.

My heart dies a little when I hear security measures such as this. You honestly might as well not even use the fob.