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My current work project deals with real-time presentation of a 360 degree video feed. We used the Ladybug camera to record 30min of footage in a contemporary glass studio. The video feed is later projected inside a hemisphere. You use a trackball to change your viewing direction at a rock solid 60Hz update rate.

Note that having a good 3D sound system is essential for this type of installation. Since you only see half of the world, a full 3D sound field can give you important clues about things which happen behind you.

We'll show this starting October 6 at the Sydney Powerhouse Museum (Australia). Enjoy.

I'm surprised the Powerhouse Museum hasn't stepped in to field this one. It's the sort of thing I'd have expected to find there...

I remember reading about this when I was a kid - early seventies I guess - in the UK, in the I Spy book of Space Exploration (or something like that.) Interestingly, there is a replica of one of the rovers in the Powerhouse museum in Sydney, Australia - along with an Apollo rocket engine nozzle! I couldn't find any pictures of the rover, but here's a link to the space exhibition.

• CSIRAC - In the Melbourne Museum "the only remaining intact first generation stored memory computer in the world"
• Parks Observatory - From the film The Dish. Yes it exists and is near Parkes only 6 hours west of Sydney. Free Visitors Center
• Powerhouse Museum - In Sydney. Displays from the industrial revolution to the digital age. Also does a cool Aibo demonstration if you've never seen one before.

As for stuff in North America, I've taken living here for granted and hardly done much local traveling so all I can think of in my neck of the woods is Science World in Vancouver. It's aimed more towards the kids though but the domed IMAX theater is impressive.

No matter what you see or do you're going to have a fantastic time. Just don't try to plan too far ahead or expect to stick to a schedule or budget or you'll spend all your time worrying and won't have any fun.

Beer is an Aussie thing. The Powerhouse Museum (Sydney, Australia) has had a game in one of it's many discrete corners where you must successfully brew a batch of beer. At the end of the game, if you got the mix correct, the guy swallows your drink and says "Well done son!" (or something similar :)), or he spits it out and tells you you screwed up!

Anyway, from the age of 6 I've been a few times and my dad was the first to show me how to get the ingredients in the recipe correct. Beer is made and drunk all around the world, but it is such an integral part of aussie culture. I love it here.

The Powerhouse Museum in Sydney Australia - has what is believed to be the oldest existing machine of the industrial revolution - Boultan and Watt Rotatative Steam Engine from 1785. It's 1 of 3 originally, the other 2 have since been destroyed, but this one is in working condition and they start it up once a day.

Shipped from England in the late 1800's it's an interesting piece of history if you are in that part of the world.

The Powerhouse Museum in Sydney Australia - has what is believed to be the oldest existing machine of the industrial revolution - Boultan and Watt Rotatative Steam Engine from 1785. It's 1 of 3 originally, the other 2 have since been destroyed, but this one is in working condition and they start it up once a day.

Shipped from England in the late 1800's it's an interesting piece of history if you are in that part of the world.

Defending Bill Gates on /. does seem foolish, but I have some spare karma. here goes

Bill bought the Codex Leicester from noted ego-maniac and proven liar Armand Hammer. Dr. Hammer had renamed the book "Codex Hammer" and not allowed public viewing.

Since acquisition, Bill has loaned it out for public display and now keeps in a museum in Seattle.

Yes, Bill, through his solely ownded Corbis, did buy the Betteman Archive and Corbis does charge for access.

BUT, the Archive was in private hands, was (literally) falling apart, was in a building the NY Times deems a "fire risk," (on old warehouse), and only a teeny portion of it was digitized.

Corbis has given the archive a proper physical home and moved much of the archive online. No one else was willing and able to invest these kinds of millions

Bill is stil an evil, rotten bastard -- even Nero did some good public works

BTW, where was CSIRAC when I was in Melbourne for CALU? :-(

It was quite an interesting exhibition, if you made allowances for the drool factor. An Apple I (with a label stating it had an Intel processor...), a piece of Charles Babbage's Difference Engine, and a few other interesting bits and pieces. It was just so depressing that nobody was looking at the difference engine, and there were hundreds of people crowded around a ho-hum industrial robot that had be programmed to "dance" in time to some crappy 70's disco music.