About the IBM Almaden CattleCam

About the IBM Almaden CattleCam

Take a look at what the cattle are doing, or search for other wildlife. The image is updated roughly once every minute. At this point, the archives are not visable from the internet. We hope to bring this to you in the future.

Unlike ordinary Web-based cams, CattleCam is designed to provide high-quality imagery. Therefore, we use only the freshest full-frame (1152 x 864) full color images. We feel that the full splendor of the western landscape replete with cattle requires such size and resolution. We wouldn't expect you to settle for anything less. Plus we have this cool alien technology.

The Almaden CattleCam is situated on the third floor of the IBM Almaden Research Center, in San Jose, California. The view is to the east, with the Diablo Range in the background. In the winter, when there are fewer leaves on the trees, you can see the Lick Observatory on Mount Hamilton more clearly. (It has been suggest that we would see more cattle if it were the Salt Lick Observatory.) If you can't see any cows, peer closely at the indiscernably cow-shaped-rock-formations. The camoflage is most effective.

The images are captured using a Kodak DC-210 digital camera via a serial port connection. They are mega-pel images (1152 x 864) The server is an IBM Thinkpad running Linux. The daily movies are crunched overnight, and represent an entire 24 hour period. Details on the inner workings are not likely to be released, due to the alien technology content. So there.