You might have noticed that I don't spend a lot of time here talking about products that I don't like or that you shouldn't buy. Although I review technology and gadgets, the purpose of this blog has always been to concentrate on the things I actually use, not the things I don't use or have no interest in. I'm going to break tradition here a bit and talk about a product that I just got that I may not actually use going forward. It's called the HoverCam X500. The reason I'm going to cover it here is because many of you have asked me about solutions for doing presentations of mobile devices like the iPad, iPhone, Droid, etc. Since very few mobile devices actually have video out that you can show the user interface of the device with, I wanted to share with you my experience with this device and what you should look out for.
What is it?
The HoverCam X500 is a USB2 Document Camera. It's designed to allow you to scan both documents and objects into your computer. Think of it as a downward facing webcam on a stand that comes with (well actually you download it) software to allow you to capture what the camera sees as either still images or video.