It was weird night in Times Square last night. I had just spilled out of a music show trying to catch any semi-convenient subway train back to Brooklyn. Hours earlier, a grand jury had failed to indict Darren Wilson on murder charges against Michael Brown and crowds gathered in protest, all bathed in the white light of this massive fucking Google screen.
Just look at the size of that thing. It has 24 million LED megapixels and costs a mere $2.5 million to use for advertising for four weeks, making it one the most expensive pieces of ad real estate in the world, according to The New York Times. It's certainly Times Square's largest screen, by a longshot, so of course Google is the premiering advertiser.
What's more, the company's giant Android ad—which Android Central caught in action—is also interactive. People can climb up on an erected platform and play games using their 20-foot Android avatars created through Google's Androidify website or app.
I had read a couple stories about the screen's size, but it just doesn't even compare to seeing the thing in person. Even with people streaming down Broadway in protest of the events in Ferguson, most people were unable to tear their eyes away from this gargantuan visual spectacle, even I had to take my OnePlus One out and grab a picture.
Eventually, onlookers peeled away one by one from the millions and millions of LEDs assaulting their eyeballs and joined the surging protest—or listened to their impassioned pleas as they slowly marched by an Android banner reading "Be together. Not the same." [Android Central]