1 What are the advantages and disadvantages of having web cams in nurseries? In 1991 a group of Cambridge University students from the School of Computer Science set up the first website camera (web cam). They focused it on the faculty coffee machine so that members of staff could see on their desk computer a ‘live’ picture, updated every few minutes, of the machine. This allowed them to check that the coffee jug was not empty before they went to use the machine. A higher-profile use of web cams was made in 1996 when Jennifer Ringley, a web-page designer from Washington, DC, trained a camera on her life and broadcast 24 hours a day from her flat.