Spectacular Bay Bridge Lights Controlled by Macs Running Windows

As anyone who's been in or around San Francisco recently knows, it's hard not to spot the Bay Lights. After dusk, the western span of the Bay Bridge fills with a jaw-dropping display comprised of 25,000 LEDs, mounted on vertical cables 30 feet apart

Each LED can be controlled individually by computer, and turned on or off 60 times a second via a 1.8-mile fiberoptic cable. This allows spectacular and unique patterns to sweep across the bridge, as they did during the official opening of the Bay Lights project last week (and for weeks of sporadic testing before that.)

To put that in perspective, it's more lights than you will find on the entire Eiffel Tower at its most shimmering. An estimated 50 million people will see the Bay Lights over the next 2 years; it's one of the signature features of the forthcoming Americas Cup.