Will New 3-D Webcam Fire Up Cam Girl Biz?

MANCHESTER, England -- A future webcam niche may be ripe for the mining with the recent release of a new 3-D camera already apparently in use by several webcam girl sites.

The Novo Minoru Web camera almost admits its market potential in adult on the product's homepage: a cleavage-displaying blonde hottie in sunglasses reaches out, arms open, from a computer monitor.

The camera is compatible with Skype, Windows Live Messenger and YouTube, the site notes, as well as AIM, and OoVoo. And yes, video and video feeds can also be uploaded to sites such as PornTube.

Gizmodo reports that as with cinema 3-D, the Minoru -- which means "reality" in Japanese -- blends two images via dual sensors into a single stream. All the user needs are those old-school red/blue-lens 3-D glasses. The little guy, uh, camera, looks like a cousin of the robot in last year's Disney/Pixar film Wall-E.

As CNET commented last fall, it's not unlike the old-time View-Master, for those who remember the slide-show viewer from the 1960s and '70s that created a 3-D effect for TV show and movie stills.

According to its website, the Minoru retails for $89 and is available worldwide. It's offered by the English company Promotion and Display Technology Ltd. in Salford, Greater Manchester.

Though the camera's use doesn't appear to be widespread yet for adult use, where there's a will, there's a way.

Fleshbot noted Wednesday that one cam girl site, UndressJess.com, was offering her videos in 3-D, as well as regular 2-D. Is it a near-future trend? We'll see. But only wearing those glasses, of course.