The first webcam watched a coffee pot.

The first webcam was created to answer a small question: was there coffee left? In late 1991, Cambridge researchers pointed a camera at the Trojan Room coffee pot and wrote software that put updated images on the department's internal computers. 1 The camera grabbed a new image about three times a minute. 2 On 22 November 1993, Martyn Johnson connected the captured images to the World Wide Web, turning the internal coffee check into the first web-enabled camera. 3 The feed was switched off on 22 August 2001 after roughly a decade of service. 1

The odd lesson: many useful technologies begin as a tiny fix for a very ordinary inconvenience.