Melissa and I recently took a Magical Mystery Tour of England, both London and Liverpool, on a Beatles quest. Part of that tour included a visit to Abbey Road Studios. That visit included a unique opportunity to go inside Studio 2, where the Beatles recorded most of their music, for a lecture. It also included a stop in the gift shop – many pounds were spent! And, of course, we walked across the famous zebra crosswalk. We walked it each direction, multiple times – us and hundreds of others! Though the well known image is 50 years old, Abbey Road Studios is keeping up with the times and maintains the hype today with a bit of technology that gave us a special memory from this trip. There is an Earthcam web camera on a pole mounted on the famous wall of the studio. (See https://www.earthcam.com/world/england/london/abbeyroad/?cam=abbeyroad_uk) It is on 24 hours/day and faces the zebra crosswalk. On the afternoon we visited the crosswalk, Melissa sent a text message to a friend in Orlando, Chris, to let him know to bring up the camera. Chris and his wife, Suzy, brought up the website and texted back that they were ready. We then walked across the crosswalk being watched by known (and unknown) people live on the internet. We reached the other side of the street, excited by the experience, and in just a few minutes, Melissa got a text from Chris that contained a video Chris recorded on his phone of his computer screen showing us walking across. A couple more minutes passed and a second, better, video arrived from Suzy, who recorded from a different computer screen. Then, we shared the video amongst our traveling foursome via airdrop and then with some family and friends via text messages. A bit later, sitting at lunch, I started thinking about the technology of what had just transpired. We spent 2 hours visiting a world of 50+ year old recording technology, then in the span of perhaps 10 minutes, were seen via the internet web camera by friends thousands of miles away, in a different time zone. We’d communicated instantly, and then received and shared video files, recorded on a handheld device – an iPhone. Wow!
Think about the many ways the scenario described by David is truly amazing. First, it is important to consider the fact that there is a 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, Earth cam web camera mounted near Abbey Road Studios in London that records every single person who crosses the famous crosswalk where The Beatles posed for the cover of the album, “Abbey Road.” Anyone, at any time, can watch the live feed from the camera to see who is walking or driving across the crosswalk that was made famous by The Beatles. This, in my opinion, is pretty cool! (I have watched the live feed from the Abbey Road web camera too many times to count; oh yes, I have!) Next, the fact that my dear friend, Chris, and his lovely wife, Suzy, were not only watching, from their computers, David and me, along with our Magical Mystery Tour traveling companions, Nancy and Bob, as we walked across the crosswalk, but recording us with their cell phones’ cameras, is astounding to me. It really is amazing how technology has allowed us to do things that were unimaginable in the recent past. Finally, the fact that Chris, in Orlando, Florida, and I, in London, England, were texting each other as we planned the walk and its recording, then sending and receiving videos of the recording, is also amazing! Everything came together (pun intended!) at just the right time, in just the right ways, for this technological feat to work out. Although two of my curmudgeonly friends complained about the grainy quality of the video I sent to them by text, the majority of people who received it joined David and me in marveling that we were able to make it happen. Thanks again, Chris and Suzy! You two rock!
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