SWITCH webcam moving to a new location
March 14, 2007
After operating for more than ten years at Limmatquai No. 138, SWITCH’s popular webcam is moving to a new location. And, for this reason, it will be switched off temporarily on Thursday, 22nd March 2007. At the end of May it will start operating again from the roof of a building in Universitätsstrasse which belongs to the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Zurich. From this location, the camera will look over the entire city centre of Zurich, including the north-west end of Lake Zurich. The webcam can then be accessed at http://cam.switch.ch again.
In the course of April 2007, SWITCH is moving from its offices on the Limmatquai / Neumühlequai near to Central in Zurich and going to Werdstrasse 2, near Stauffacher. A new location has thus had to be found for the SWITCH webcam. As of the end of July 2007, the webcam will be operating from Universitätsstrasse, on the roof of a building owned by the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Zurich. At this new location, the camera will no longer be quite so close to what is going on at street level in Zurich, but the swivel range will be wider and it will be possible to eliminate the restriction currently imposed by the maximum zoom factor.
Especially popular
The fact that the SWITCH webcam meets a great need is borne out first of all by the access statistics. In 2006, the camera was used by 1000 visitors every day. They took almost 200 photos and produced 900 live streams every day.
And we also repeatedly receive enthusiastic e-mails from users all over the world. "I would like to thank you for running the SWITCHcam in your beautiful city. Switzerland is the place where I learned what true love meant, Zurich taught me of culture, and the Alps took my breath away." Russell Munoz, Minnesota, USA.
"This is just too cool. I lived in Zurich for over a year, and it is great to be able to view Central via the Internet." Peter Michael, Belgium
From Zurich with Love
SWITCH frequently watches tourists phoning their relatives in distant countries on their mobiles and waving to them – in the direction of the camera. This is doubtless one of the most unusual and delightful ways of sending live holiday greetings in real time to their loved ones at home.
What happened recently, however, exceeded even the wildest imagination of the very boldest webcam users. In the early hours of the morning, a 15-metre long banner with a love declaration was hung off the fence along the Limmat river. Either side of the banner was a notice proclaiming “Dear policemen and policewomen, Dear city cleansing department, Dear passers-by: this banner has been hung up opposite the SWITCH webcam and is being transmitted live to the USA where it will be shown on a big screen for the guests at a wedding. It is thus essential for this banner to remain on the fence until next Saturday evening to ensure that the bride gets a delightful surprise … Many Thanks.”
At a wedding in the USA, the groom surprised his bride with a love declaration displayed on the Limmatquai in Zurich.
Live Streams
The SWITCH webcam offers a large number of features, such as live streaming in three different formats, aligned to the users’ network bandwidth. The camera generates a new panorama picture every hour. And all these pictures are available in a panorama archive online, going right back to 11 September 2001. Yet the webcam has even more to offer – since recordings first started, the camera has compiled a weekly, and even annual, fast-motion sequence.