It was only a matter of time. The latest internet sensation, Justin.tv has been picked up will become commercially available this Spring. Guangzhou-based electronics firm V-Tech picked up to the trend and is planning on making “Justin Caps” available for sale for $29.99.To keep costs down, the camera has been replaced with a high-resolution CCD cam and a condenser microphone. Connectivity in the United States is going to be via an arrangement with Virgin Mobile who will provide caps with a pre-paid plan for 1000 minutes with a code that will allow cap owners to login to the Virgin Mobile website and purchase additional minutes as needed or upgrade to the Infinity plan subsidized by video advertising inserted into the live feed every ten minutes.
Obvious Corp. is also in talks with V-Tech and Virgin Mobile and will connect their popular Twitter service to each Justin cap in a multi-media version of Twitter code-named “Snow” in homage to the 1992 science fiction book by Neal Stephenson. As a member of Snow, members will be able to clap their hands to activate a clapper-based shutter that will capture 10 seconds of video and sound and broadcast it to all their Snow network friends simultaneously. When asked why the beloved technology advertised on late-night television was used as the interface, the Twitter staff replied, “if someone’s clapping, it’s got to be worth broadcasting out to your friends.”
Justin Kan, the Justin of Justin.TV could not be reached for comment. He was too busy running from a crowd of applauding teenagers.
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