Keeping an Eye Out

Spend a lot of time at work worrying whether you left the coffee pot on back home? For less than $400, you can start checking up on yourself.

San Diego-based Moonlight Products Inc. recently introduced a remote computer camera, the FoneCam, which captures images similar to a 35-millimeter camera. The pyramid-shaped device contains its own modem and transmits images over telephone lines, which means--unlike other computer-camera incarnations--FoneCam can be accessed over telephone lines by any computer loaded with FoneCam software.

So you can set one up on the kitchen counter and keep track of your appliances. Or you can check in on your weekend home. If you live near a freeway, you could set one up for personalized traffic updates, or point one at a favorite vista and escape the workday vicariously.

Or you could just set one up on the patio and watch your grass grow.

At 6 inches high with a nearly 4-inch-deep base, FoneCam won’t work easily as a snooping device, but it should help liven up personal Web pages and let out-of-town relatives check in on you over the holidays.

Or not.

Image samples--including a shot of San Diego Bay--can be found on FoneCam’s Web site, https://www.fonecam.com.