Video Email and Conferencing

A better video camera for your desktop. It isn't as cool looking as those eyeball shaped cameras from Connectix, but a company called Xirlink has an inexpensive digital video camera for PCs that has the smoothest picture we've seen. The Xirlink C-It gives you great color and a higher frame rate than most of its competitors and still sells for under a hundred dollars. Xirlink's Rachel Palomino...

"When you turn it on and you're looking at it in what we call local view, you can see that it's real time, it's like watching TV."

The USB connection makes it easy to install and set up, especially with Windows 98 and the software that comes with the camera let's you take and save snapshots, create screensavers and video email....

"You basically click on the capture button, you capture your message and you send it off as if it were email."

The person you're sending the video email to doesn't need any special software to watch your message. You can also use the camera for video conferencing in real time over the Internet, but unlike the Connectix QuickCam VC, it does not include software for making video phone calls from computer to computer. You can find more information at xirlink.com.