A window on the planet

Tholos is an ambitious project aiming to create landmark tourist attractions in the centre of capital cities around the world where the public will be able to meet and talk as if they were facing each other even though they may be thousands of miles apart. Tholos uses a huge cylindrical 360 degree screen which is three metres high and seven metres in diameter. The screen simultaneously transmits and receives very high definition moving images in real-time and hence people will be able to have eye-to-eye conversations with non-distorted life-sized images of their friends overseas.
The idea is that each gateway kiosk will be linked to another in a different country, so that tourists and inhabitants of the two cities can interact, talk and wave to each other in real time. Tholos and its location in each city is expected to become the multi-cultural and tourist meeting center since it will also be a presentation tool for art movies, cultural media, documentations and other events. With these unique attributes, it is hoped that the Tholos project will become a high technology window to the world, with 'viral' international tourism promotional advantages for the hosts.
Each Tholos is expected to cost about AUD$3.5 million, though the obvious major overhead will be the real estate. Use of Tholos by the public will be free, with advertising expected to finance each installation with around 13% of the airtime allocated to advertising.