Did you know that the world's first webcam was set up to keep an eye on a coffee pot?

"One of the things that's very, very important in computer science research is a regular and dependable flow of caffeine" - Dr Quentin Stafford-Fraser

Cuppa Joe, Java, Go-juice. Whatever you call it, Coffee is at the forefront of what you need to function during the day (or heads will roll). Picture this. You are a computer scientist in the 1990’s (when Google was just a misspelling of “goggle”) and you walk into the breakroom with Wham!’s “Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go” playing in your head as you can’t wait to have your first sip of sweet caffeine nectar for the day. As you stroll into the room, your enthusiasm hits a brick wall. The coffee pot is empty. You stand beside the pot and begin to start brewing a new batch, when suddenly, you have a brain-wave. What if I could monitor how much coffee was in the pot BEFORE I even left my desk? You dash back to your desk (almost spilling your coffee). Sipping and coding. Sipping and coding. Voila! You’ve created software to remotely view the coffee pot via camera! (Oh yes, and you just revolutionized the world by inventing the “Webcam”.)