MacRumors

The folks at Ecamm Network in the West Hall were showing off their suite of products. Many probably know them from their product iChatUSBCam, which has allowed USB webcams to work with iChat for some time.

However, what was probably the coolest software that they were demoing in their booth was a proof-of-concept that used the iPhone's camera as a remote webcam for iChat. Beyond just being a cool concept, it can be useful if you want to show the other participant of the conference something in the other room.

The technology currently works as a 3rd party application installed on the iPhone. When the iPhone is connected to your WiFi network and the application is loaded on the iPhone, your computer can use Bonjour to detect the iPhone's camera and voila.

In its current incarnation, it isn't ready for prime-time. After a few minutes, the picture would freeze, and connection would have to be manually re-established. There's also no word on availability as of yet, though a trip over to Ecamm's website would be good if not just for this product, but to check out their other software as well.

As a follow up to the 3g Deal Breaker article, I thought I'd write some additional thoughts about the MacBook Air, and some reconsideration of my initial reaction.

Traditionally, the "sub-notebook" class of machine has tended to be marketed at the power-user, so that's how many of the media approached the MacBook Air... but that may have been the wrong way to look at it. In speaking to Xavier of Notebooks.com, he mentioned (and later wrote about) how that the MacBook Air instantly appealed to his wife, who is normally less than thrilled at the prospect of Xavier getting new hardware:

I didnt bother to consider my wifes point of view on the MacBook Air until I got her Facebook status update (secretly hopes Xavier gets the MacBook Air."). But then I started thinking about how this new Mac will appeal to women. Its slim enough to throw in a purse, is stylish and has very few cords, which creates clutter.

There's certainly a class of users who simply don't care about 3G, don't care about hooking up more than one USB peripheral to their MacBook. So, I'll concede that the many bloggers may not be the intended audience for the MacBook Air, and it could very well see wide consumer appeal.

Spore is your own personal universe in a box. In this universe you can create and evolve life, establish tribes, build civilizations and even sculpt entire worlds. In Spore you have a variety of creation tools at your disposal that allow you to customize nearly aspect of your universe: creatures, vehicles, buildings, and even spaceships. While Spore is a single player game, your creations and other players' creations are automatically shared between your galaxy and theirs, providing a limitless number of worlds to explore and play.

Spore will use TransGaming's technology to allow EA to quickly make a Mac version of the game:

"The technology wrapper goes around (the software), and traps the (code) calls native to the Windows environment, and converts them to the correct calls for Mac," McCombe said. "It's not a complete code rewrite. It's more wrapper technology with some customer work."

The official site has more information, screenshots and movies.

The iLidz Personal Media Viewer was previewed at Macworld, promising "a large screen viewing experience at a fraction of the cost."

Simply insert your iPhone into the iLidz media viewer, look through the magnifying glass and adjust until focused. Voila. Hands free viewing. I can't say I necessarily felt like I was looking at a large screen, I suppose being hands free while watching a movie could be useful.

For the story behind iLidz, see i-lidz.com. The $29.95 iLidz is being fine tuned for mass production.

Overall the product worked as advertised, though there was some sluggishness with the video on the USB-driven monitor. Quicktime movies were playable and watchable but there was occasional tearing. The USB monitor was hot-pluggable - Mac OS X recognized when the USB monitor was removed and readded and acted appropriately.

The maximum resolution of the additional monitor is 1440 x 1024. The device retails for $139.99 and available now, but Mac OS X drivers aren't expected until April 1, 2008.

- Bobcat allows you to transfer waypoints, tracks, and routes between your Mac and Garmin device and manage your data using your Garmin maps.
- Bobcat provides the ability to search for points of interest from the convenience of your Mac and then send the locations to your Garmin GPS.
- Bobcat also serves as a backup tool for your Garmin GPS. You can receive all your waypoints, routes, and tracks from your GPS and Bobcat will save them automatically.
- MapManager copies maps and unlock codes into the right place to be accessible by Bobcat and MapInstall.

Apple has released a new iPod game, Block Breaker Deluxe, by Gameloft S.A.

Block Breaker Deluxe is a classic, arcade brick-breaker game reinvented with hot graphics. Play the game and interact with cool characters in their jet-set nightlife settings: bar, dance club, beach, restaurant, casino, and more!

The game is available for all iPods that are compatible with iPod games, including the 5th generation iPod, 3rd generation iPod Nano, and iPod Classic.

SubRosaSoft in booth 218 in the South Hall showed its data protection programs, including FileSalvage and FileDefense.

FileSalvage is a data recovery program that assists in the recovery of data lost due to varying situations, including media corruption and accidental deletion. While many may think that such software has become antiquated with the push that Apple has made with Time Machine, it should be noted that FileSalvage also works on flash drives and other removable media as well as hard drives and disk images, and can work with almost any format (over 100 are currently supported). FileSalvage website

FileDefense is a program that promises to protect users from malicious programs. FileDefense works by monitoring whenever programs try to write to the disk. Users can, of course, white-list programs, and certain programs are automatically white-listed so as to not inundate the user with notifications. However, the potential for the application did become somewhat apparent when SubRosaSoft demoed a proof-of-concept Trojan that when launched modified iTunes by writing junk data into iTunes.app. SubRosaSoft says the trojan did not require administrative permissions, and indeed no pop-up was delivered to ask for administrative rights. However, what did pop-up was FileDefense telling me about the pending malicious action and asking me if I wanted to allow it. FileDefense website

SubRosaSoft also was showcasing two of its products that it sells to law enforcement: MacForensicsLab and MacLockPick. While clearly these are very nich applications, I did ask how the Mac forensics market was doing. SubRosaSoft representative Ben Brausen said that the market has grown over the past two years as the industry has found problems needing solutions. Additionally, SubRosaSoft has provided tri-platform solutions (PC/Mac/Linux) at lower prices than the competition.

Some random sightings at Macworld.

Pricing ranges from $12.95 to $29.95

Renewed Vision, like BusyMac, is another great example of finding a hidden gem on the Macworld South Hall booth floor.

Renewed Vision is a company that at first had its vision on creating immersive environments for worship at today's churches. According to their website, their first product, ProPresenter was written specially for Passion Conferences in 1999. One of ProPresenter's features is that it allows the personnel controlling the main content display (i.e. worship lyrics, scripture, etc) to not be concerned with any background effects that may be applied. This separation of duties is critical to any live scenario, and Renewed Vision says that is one of the things that has made the product so successful. ProPresenter features.

However, like any successful company, their line now has expanded beyond their initial product and beyond their initial market. ProVideoPlayer is a companion to ProPresenter, and utilizes many Mac technologies to grid-map video content across multiple displays attached to multiple computers. OpenGL and CoreImage effects can be applied on the fly, and content can be dragged and dropped into action. The application is also playlist based, which allows it to run autonomously for extended periods. Support is also included for MIDI controllers. ProVideoPlayer features.

But what makes ProVideoPlayer especially interesting is not only what it can do, but the success it has already had. While it was initially developed for the concert and stage markets, Renewed Vision has sold the product to digital sign companies and department stores, including Calvin Kline, Macys, Mercedes, and even Gulfstream. They even did a custom setup for a restaurant that wanted to create a roof-top feel. Below is the panoramic of that setup, which consisted of 20 projectors connected to Mac Minis (each mac mini displayed 720p content for a total of 25,600 x 720 pixels).

For more on Renewed Vision's solutions, including their custom video synchronization solution ProVideoSync, visit their website.

Renewed Vision's Brad Weston, left, and Greg Dolezal, right. Brad also serves as Video Director for North Point Community Church and Video Director for Passion Conferences; Greg also serves as tour manager for artist Chris Tomlin (iTunes link) and co-producer of Passion

In one of the many booths of South Hall 1338, BusyMac was busily showing off brand new features to its prime product, BusySync.

BusySync is a preference pane that allows you to synchronize iCal calendars across multiple computers without the need for a .Mac subscription. It utilizes many core Mac OS X technologies such as SyncServices, CoreData, and Bonjour, and the result is a pretty slick alternative for those who use .Mac primarily for its calendar synchronization capabilities.

BusySync uses peer to peer calendar sharing rather than .Mac's client-server model. In the preference pane, you can select which of your calendars you would like to share, and then select what permissions you'd like others to have (read, read/write, administrative, etc). It will automatically discover shared calendars over local Bonjour networks and automatically synchronize updates as they are made. However, users not daunted by port forwarding can also make their calendars accessible via the internet for sharing. SSL encryption is available (and advisable) to users of Mac OS 10.5 Leopard.

BusySync 2 adds Google Calendar synchronization support. In a demo, John Chaffee of BusyMac demonstrated how a change on Google Calendar was quickly reflected on each of his iCal calendars on his two notebooks in his booth, and vise-versa. He also mentions that Google Calendar support will also be useful to mobile users who want to have a read/write copy available on the internet, something that .Mac does not currently support.

BusySync 1.5 is available for $20 per computer, though discounts are available for multiple users. BusySync 2, when it comes out, will be $25, however if you buy BusySync 1.5 now, you will be eligible for a free upgrade. A time-limited demo version is also available via BusyMac's website.