This is a technique whereby a QuickTime movie, stored on and delivered by my web server uses your Mac’s iSight camera and microphone to create a movie with a reflective interface containing the local video stream and a logo that is resized by the user’s voice (all in real time). This demonstration makes use of Apple’s Quartz technology.

First, you should note that if you don’t have a Mac, you won’t see anything in this article. Now, if you’re using a Mac without an iSight camera, or if your iSight camera is in use by another application or browser window), this will not work properly.

The image being reflected in the background is me (erm, well, you), taken directly off my (your) iSight camera.

When you say “Wow, that’s cool” or “Man, that’s dumb”, or whatever expletive you utter, notice the Zavoodi logo grows and spins. This movie is also using you microphone, calculating peak voltage (the electrical equivalent of amplitude), and resizing and rotating the logo based upon that.

Notice that the time and date is being updated using your local computer clock. This capability is contained in the .MOV file, and is not a Javascript layer hack.

Pretty groovy stuff, in 512×384 resolution, for 114.2 Kb!

See what all the fuss is about

Please note: This idea was first documented on bbum’s blog-o-mat and revived recently here.