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Show HN: LiveWorld – Every 24/7 YouTube live camera on one globe

41 points · 37 comments · harisingh1612

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harisingh1612 · 1789779301 · focus · HN ↗
hey HN, hari here. built this over the last 2 weeks solo. figured id share now since HN weekend crowd is a good stress test.
the idea came from wanting a way to drop into somewhere on earth and see whats happening right now. youtube has thousands of 24/7 live streams (nature, transit, airport aprons, urban corners) but theyre scattered across a million channels so nobody finds them. so i put them on a globe.
currently 641 cams across ~60 countries. tap a marker, video plays inline, per-camera chat so you can see who else is watching the same view. free, no login needed to watch, no ads, no tracking.
stack: laravel + reverb websockets + postgres, maplibre globe with osm tiles, runs on a $10 tokyo vps. discovery is youtube data api cron on 200+ keywords + admin divisions, plus scraping the internal youtube search bypass for keyword combos api search misses. currently at 6% of the free youtube api quota.
thin spots in coverage: africa, small towns anywhere, central asia, pacific islands. if you know good 24/7 cams that arent geo-blocked, either drop the url here or use the submit button on the bottom left of the site. i approve within a day.
open to feedback on the map ux, discovery, whatever. happy to answer stack questions too.
1. Todd · 1789783179 · focus · HN ↗
  Love the idea Hari. On my iPhone, when I tap a dot, it takes me straight to the camera page. I would expect a popover with a title, etc. and a second tap to go to the camera page.
  1. harisingh1612 · 1789785106 · focus · HN ↗
    good catch, thats a mobile bug. desktop hover shows the popover, tap on mobile skips it and jumps. adding a mobile-only tap-once-for-preview flow tonight. thanks
2. CommieBobDole · 1789783898 · focus · HN ↗
  This is nice, but how are you determining the location of a camera for map purposes? Some of them are correct, but there are others that have very specific map locations that are off by as much as a hemisphere - an Ohio one in Chicago, a Venice, Italy one in San Bernardino, Pennsylvania and Ohio in Phoenix, etc.
  1. harisingh1612 · 1789785089 · focus · HN ↗
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    DANmode · 1789789684 · focus · HN ↗
    Keep making stuff.
    Thank you!
    harisingh1612 · 1789792333 · focus · HN ↗
    thanks man, appreciated
  2. harisingh1612 · 1789791482 · focus · HN ↗
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3. softboyled · 1789784497 · focus · HN ↗
  Firefox' Enhanced Tracking Protection breaks the map in a weird way. The Map bounces up and down erratically.
  This message piles up in the console:
  Blocked <a href="https://liveworld.info" rel="nofollow">https://liveworld.info from extracting canvas data because no user input was detected
  1. harisingh1612 · 1789785053 · focus · HN ↗
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Vakaiser · 1789782516 · focus · HN ↗
<a href="https://liveworld.info/cam/seattle-sea-otter" rel="nofollow">https://liveworld.info/cam/seattle-sea-otter
Started watching the Sea Otters in the Seattle Aquarium. 10/10 would 'awww' again.
1. harisingh1612 · 1789784769 · focus · HN ↗
  ha thanks. the sea otters cam has been the personal favorite too, its up on my second monitor half the workday
senordevnyc · 1789782815 · focus · HN ↗
Missing this one: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/live/ydYDqZQpim8?si=YfuIXAI7N-zy_XTv" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/live/ydYDqZQpim8?si=YfuIXAI7N-zy_XTv
1. harisingh1612 · 1789784833 · focus · HN ↗
  in. thanks. if you spot others just drop urls, submit button is bottom-left on the site or ping me here
defrost · 1789783353 · focus · HN ↗
Every is a bold claim. Aspirational. Good luck going forward filling them all in.
There's a fair few missing from Australia (easily more than 8 24/7 live cameras in Oz). eg: The Kings Canyon Waterholes in Watarrka National Park. (mostly dawn and dusk action)
1. harisingh1612 · 1789784797 · focus · HN ↗
  fair. every is aspirational, shouldve said as many as i can find. currently 652 cams, targeting the ~2-3k publicly embeddable ceiling. adding kings canyon waterholes now, ping me any other australian cams you know of and ill get them in tonight. appreciate the poke
  1. defrost · 1789790796 · focus · HN ↗
    No drama, will do if I get the free time. You might like to try your luck asking in /r/Australia or searching for already existing cam lists.
    Spinning globe apps are always fun to, uhh, spin up - it's getting good and near complete data sets to layer on that often poses the real last mile challenge.
    All the best.
    harisingh1612 · 1789792002 · focus · HN ↗
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xnx · 1789785379 · focus · HN ↗
A comprehensive site like this would be great. This cam is plotted in Chicago which is incorrect: <a href="https://liveworld.info/cam/deshler-ohio-usa-live-train-camera-fixed-view-diamond-y28qu7" rel="nofollow">https://liveworld.info/cam/deshler-ohio-usa-live-train-camer...
1. harisingh1612 · 1789786331 · focus · HN ↗
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2. harisingh1612 · 1789791420 · focus · HN ↗
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grogenaut · 1789785857 · focus · HN ↗
the site is missing a ton just off the top of my head:
<a href="https://www.summitatsnoqualmie.com/webcams" rel="nofollow">https://www.summitatsnoqualmie.com/webcams all of these are live most of the time
agreed that "every" is a bold claim. I can find more with a google search.
1. harisingh1612 · 1789786348 · focus · HN ↗
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tolidano · 1789786567 · focus · HN ↗
Have you used Earthcam? It does a pretty good job of this.
1. harisingh1612 · 1789786912 · focus · HN ↗
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dumbmrblah · 1789787654 · focus · HN ↗
You have Toronto, Ontario under Ontario Airport in California. As well as Hamptons Cam in Long Beach, I think.
1. harisingh1612 · 1789788092 · focus · HN ↗
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2. harisingh1612 · 1789791461 · focus · HN ↗
  both live now. toronto cn tower cam correctly at 43.71, -79.40 (was matching ontario airport california off lake ontario): <a href="https://liveworld.info/cam/toronto-4k-live-cam-cn-tower-lake-ontario-chill-lof-bbjwot" rel="nofollow">https://liveworld.info/cam/toronto-4k-live-cam-cn-tower-lake.... hamptons cams all 8 now at 40.96, -72.19 in east hampton NY (was hampton virginia): <a href="https://liveworld.info/cam/hamptonscom-live-4k-main-beach-east-hampton-village-ne-xm1-e4" rel="nofollow">https://liveworld.info/cam/hamptonscom-live-4k-main-beach-ea.... appreciated
s_dev · 1789787931 · focus · HN ↗
Dublin, Ireland lists Duluth Canal Cam as a live cam which is wrong.
1. harisingh1612 · 1789788108 · focus · HN ↗
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2. harisingh1612 · 1789791441 · focus · HN ↗
  fixed. duluth canal cam now correctly at 46.78, -92.10 (duluth minnesota): <a href="https://liveworld.info/cam/duluth-canal-cam-hps48t" rel="nofollow">https://liveworld.info/cam/duluth-canal-cam-hps48t. thanks again
ceautery · 1789788983 · focus · HN ↗
I like the idea. As others have noted, some of the map placements are wrong. For example, the Glendale Ohio cam is placed in Glendale Arizona. Easy to patch up, and a fun idea. Good job!
1. harisingh1612 · 1789790128 · focus · HN ↗
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2. harisingh1612 · 1789791499 · focus · HN ↗
  fixed. glendale ohio cam now at 39.27, -84.46 (was glendale arizona): <a href="https://liveworld.info/cam/glendale-ohio-usa-live-train-camera-fixed-view-north-vf4zdg" rel="nofollow">https://liveworld.info/cam/glendale-ohio-usa-live-train-came.... added to the regression fixture set. thanks for the specific pin
jedbrooke · 1789791753 · focus · HN ↗
23 live streams at null island [0] :)
cool idea, I like the round globe too, now with 3D rendering in the browser being trivial on modern devices, there’s no excuse for choosing compromising 2D projections of the globe.
[0]: <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Null_Island" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Null_Island
1. harisingh1612 · 1789792317 · focus · HN ↗
  haha the null island cluster, yeah those are cams the geocoder gave up on and fell to 0,0 instead of marking them unlocated. shipping tonight: hide anything at exactly 0,0 from the map + route them to an admin queue for manual pinning. and yeah native maplibre globe projection is the whole reason building this was fun. thanks for the wiki link, hadnt actually seen the null island page before
MikeNotThePope · 1789792159 · focus · HN ↗
Missing Lukla in Nepal. Where is the claim to be every live camera coming from? This looks like dozens, not a lot more than that.
WEBCAM NEPAL LIVE: LUKLA AIRPORT - LIVE STREAMING FROM HIMALAYA LODGE LUKLA, SOLUKHUMBU, NEPAL - <a href="https://www.youtube.com/live/am9KDRSZQ-0?si=IjVDTSU_IZ418fyT" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/live/am9KDRSZQ-0?si=IjVDTSU_IZ418fyT
1. harisingh1612 · 1789792276 · focus · HN ↗
  every was aspirational, my mistake in the title. currently 660ish cams and climbing. lukla is in tonights ingest batch, thanks for the specific url. youtube search doesnt reliably surface it because "webcam nepal live" is fighting a lot of generic travel content. more urls welcome if you have them, submit button bottom-left on the site or drop here
2. harisingh1612 · 1789792944 · focus · HN ↗
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3. slacktivism123 · 1789793315 · focus · HN ↗
  You're asking Claude so expect a Claudish answer.
  Lowercasing the text and removing a few periods does not obfuscate the fact that it is Claudespeak.
  And that is why most of OP's comments are being auto-flagged by HN's slop detector, which you can see if you turn on showdead.
  <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html#generated">https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html#generated
  1. harisingh1612 · 1789794542 · focus · HN ↗
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AlisaYoki · 1789795948 · focus · HN ↗
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Markoff · 1789796677 · focus · HN ↗
> Every
yeah right, TIL in Czechia there are only 3 live cameras and in Slovakia and Hungary zero
found immediately one in Bratislava
<a href="https://youtube.com/watch?v=SXt2_-luUr8" rel="nofollow">https://youtube.com/watch?v=SXt2_-luUr8
what a horrible website with such claims
flagged for obvious lies in title
1. harisingh1612 · 1789813868 · focus · HN ↗
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2. harisingh1612 · 1789816515 · focus · HN ↗
  update, petrzalka cam is in and live at <a href="https://liveworld.info/cam/petrzalka-train-station-live-stream-bratislava-slovakia-sxt2_-" rel="nofollow">https://liveworld.info/cam/petrzalka-train-station-live-stre... got a proper bratislava pin now. still workin on the czechia/hungary side, next batch shd land those. thanks for the push
burello · 1789796791 · focus · HN ↗
I like the interface. Keep building the interface. How will you monitor camera uptime? Maybe include a rating system to the camera icons.
1. harisingh1612 · 1789813927 · focus · HN ↗
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woutr_be · 1789808619 · focus · HN ↗
I have something similar at <a href="https://livelane.qubic-ventures.com" rel="nofollow">https://livelane.qubic-ventures.com. Started as a simple weekend project, but it’s becoming quite the headache. All sources are mainly from official government sites, which means many are very unreliable.
Some have public APIs, others require registration where it takes months to hear back.
I currently have about 30 ingestion scripts that more often than not break down.
I then also have an iOS app, but that ships with a bundled sqlite database.
1. harisingh1612 · 1789814167 · focus · HN ↗
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markolb · 1789819758 · focus · HN ↗
Nice job! Would be great to watch some nature/jungle stuff realtime ;)
1. harisingh1612 · 1789819904 · focus · HN ↗
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diyzt43bj · 1789823300 · focus · HN ↗
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VCFundedGenYer · 1789826638 · focus · HN ↗
I know for a fact we have at least 30-50 live weather cameras in my area (Windy.com shows em) and this site shows absolutely none of them.
Gotta work on your discovery more.
1. xnx · 1789830747 · focus · HN ↗
  Are they YouTube streams? The LiveWorld site is only YouTube streams.
  1. harisingh1612 · 1789837708 · focus · HN ↗
    yeah exactly this. and the 160-cam offer still stands whenever youre ready, hari at sapporosoft dot com works.
    xnx · 1789859649 · focus · HN ↗
    Will send. I did a compare and I think about 120 you didn't have.
2. harisingh1612 · 1789837691 · focus · HN ↗
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iAMkenough · 1789828561 · focus · HN ↗
Definitely not “every” camera by a long shot.
1. harisingh1612 · 1789837728 · focus · HN ↗
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