Piano lessons over video

While videoconferencing technology is not close enough to real-time to play a duet, it is being used for remote Piano lessons in Canada, linking instructor and student that are 700 miles apart:

Every two weeks, when Lucas plays a piano at Acadia University, a short drive from his home, his teacher, Marc Durand, sits listening 700 miles away at a second shiny black grand piano at the Royal Conservatory of Music in Toronto. With a built-in computer and tiny solenoid pistons, the piano springs to life there as though being played by a ghost imitating every keystroke and pedal movement that Lucas makes.

Read the story here (NY Times link).