  The success of the AMANDA neutrino telescope has shown that the ice sheet at
the geographical South Pole is a suitable medium for optical Cherenkov
detection of high energy neutrino interactions. Several thousands of
atmospheric neutrinos have been recorded by AMANDA and the sensitivity for
cosmic neutrinos has continuously improved. So far no cosmic neutrino signals
have been detected. The deployment of the much larger and more sensitive
IceCube neutrino observatory has started and nine out of 80 strings have been
installed. This paper summarizes some of the results obtained by the AMANDA
telescope and presents the status of the IceCube project.
