A Transatlantic Telescope

UPDATE: My first-hand report here!

Various news outlets are reporting the completion of a "Telectroscope" that allows Londoners and New Yorkers to see each other in real time. Really? Well, sort of. It's a cool art exhibit:

"The whole thing is about seeing what is real and what isn't real and how the world is," said Nicki Webb, a co-founder of Artichoke. "Is it nighttime when we are in daytime and does it look familiar to us or not?"

When the sun illuminated the lens of the Telectroscope next to the Thames this morning, it was, of course, still nighttime in New York. So the screen inside the scope broadcast back only an empty sidewalk silently framed by the Brooklyn Bridge and Manhattan skyline.

But then something miraculous occurred.

A police officer and a street cleaner walked into the frame. Stopped. And waved."

The New York Times has more here.