What is the link between your video calls and your coffee?

More than you think.

Every day, you join a video call. Colleagues on screen, coffee in hand. It's become so normal you don't even think about it anymore. But did you know those two things didn't grow together by accident?

In the early 90s, computer scientists at the University of Cambridge were working at the edge of what technology could do. But the real problem? The coffee pot was on another floor. And it was often empty by the time you got there.

Frustrating enough to come up with a solution.

They pointed a camera at the coffee pot. Three photos per minute, shared over the internal network. No more climbing the stairs for nothing.

In 1993, one colleague didn't have access to the internal network. So what now? Well, he put the images online. Suddenly, the whole world could watch. People from Japan asked if a lamp could stay on overnight. Tourists flew to Cambridge just to see the pot live.

The very first webcam. Invented for coffee.

Since then, webcams have never left our lives. They were stuck to our laptops long before we knew what Zoom, Skype or Teams was. And today, the combination is so natural it's become a ritual: pour a coffee, start a call.

Just make sure that coffee is worth it — like ours at Not Now.