The always interesting VRMag online magazine has a new issue out (#28). This issue contains amazing QuickTime VR panoramas of the closed area of Chernobyl (apparently no dose of radiation is too high in the pursuit of panoramic imagery!), along with some wonderful images of Havana, Cuba. This issue also has a republished version of my review of the Old Masters Gallery in Dresden, which first appeared in the ExhibitFiles. Along with the republished text, photographer Johnny Vaccaro has added some beautifully detailed full-screen panoramas of the Old Masters Gallery.

Earlier in the month, I had the opportunity to meet the VRMag Editorial Director Marco Trezzini in Lugano, Switzerland. (I taught a class at the University of Lugano as part of their TEC-CH Masters program.) It was great to finally have an opportunity to meet Marco and talk shop, as we’ve been in email contact for several years now. VRMag has covered our work since we got started back in 2000, along with the work of hundreds of other photographers and multimedia firms. VRMag and the VRWay site list dozens of feature stories and an extensive hotlist of panoramic images from around the world.

Update November 30th: BoingBoing (the #3 Blog in the world according to Technorati) has a post about VRMag, apparently John Gaeta “the Oscar-winning special effects guru behind The Matrix trilogy and the forthcoming Speed Racer film” has some very nice things to say about VRMag.

Remember running your operating system off of a floppy disk? I recently came across the Vintage Mac Museum via a post on the Design Museum Blog. I found myself feeling a bit nostalgic for my orginal MacPlus, loaded with a full megabyte of RAM. The online Vintage Mac Museum shows a series of screen shots from the original Macintosh operating system.

In the image above, the icon in the upper right is from a 400KB floppy disk. Hard disks were just starting to become available, but they were still very expensive.

All this brought back memories of the coolest early Macintosh I owned. (Yes, even cooler than the MacPlus.) It was an original Mac “clone” and one of the first Mac portables. It was called the Outback, and it was developed, as the name suggests, by a company in Australia.

The company basically ripped apart Mac SE computers and repackaged them in a portable format. The battery for the laptop was a standard camcorder battery. If I remember correctly, Apple eventually sued the makers of the Outback and won, and the Outback went out of business. Several years ago, I donated my Outback computer to the Obsolete Computer Museum. You can see the full-entry for this unique, portable computer here.

Just yesterday I heard the news that Bob Miller died on Sunday. He was an artist, exhibit developer and educator, and an important part of the Exploratorium experience. Bob developed the inspirational “Sun Painting” exhibit where sunlight goes through a series of mirrors and prisms to create a dynamic “painting.”

Years ago, I was lucky enough to participate in one of Bob’s famous “Light Walks.” You can see the online version for a description of the light walk, but it is only that – a description. For those who’ve participated, the light walk is a powerful experience and a Website hardly does it justice. While I don’t know how many people have been lucky enough to participate in this walk with Bob over the years, I was happy to see a post on the Exploratorium Explainers Blog talking about going on the light walk just last September.

Another blog post at Asymptotia, Remembering Bob Miller includes a great article about Bob Miller written by K.C. Cole. Bob Miller will be missed.