As part of the drivers SIG's effort to establish officially supported
driver packages for USB cameras, I'm proposing a new USB Video Class (UVC)
driver.

http://www.ros.org/wiki/libuvc_camera

libuvc_camera uses a libusb-based userspace UVC library to stream video
frames from UVC devices and to read, set and monitor control settings. It
is intended to be cross-platform (Mac, potentially Windows) and to enable
ROS driver features that are not available through Video4Linux. Examples
include more accurate timestamps; lower, more predictable latency; and
efficient monitoring of camera-controlled parameters (e.g., exposure time).

I've created an API review page:

http://www.ros.org/wiki/libuvc_camera/Reviews/2012-02-23_API_Review

If you are interested in this driver, please take a look at the ROS API and
share your comments on the review page.