bitty
Actually, This is how the webcam was invented.
At Cambridge University, they were sick of checking the coffee pot level, so Quentin Stafford-Frasier wrote client software for a greyscale 128x128 camera hooked up to an acorn archemedes computer. Paul Jardetzky wrote the server program.
Technology always comes full circle.
Necessity is the mother of invention.
I love that some of the best inventions were created for the most mundane reasons