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Google Arts & Culture app adds Cardboard features and Art Recognizer on Android, iOS

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Last year, Google introduced an Arts & Culture app to showcase its collection of digitized art and other projects. The Google Cultural Institute is releasing an updated version of the app that is more feature-rich with a Google Cardboard VR component and a new Art Recognizer tool in select museums.

At the time, the Arts & Culture app was just a 52KB Chrome wrapper, but now there are more native elements that lead to a speedier experience than before. The app has a stream of artwork and very detailed artists pages that show collections of works and allow users to zoom in on a digitized piece. There are also useful tabs for history and physical wonders of the world.

The slide out navigation menu allows users to filter by artist, mediums, art movements, etc., as well as look through the Cultural Institute’s various projects and partner museums. The latter feature is very useful when visiting museums and acts as a guide. For those who aren’t physically attending, sliding the Arts & Culture app into a Cardboard viewer will let users take a trip to significant art places around the world.

In select museums, a new Art Recognizer feature allows you to point your camera at a piece on display and find relevant information about it. So far, it is live in London’s Dulwich Picture Gallery, Sydney’s Art Gallery of New South Wales, and the National Gallery of Art in Washington DC, with plans to roll out to other museums around the world.

The Cardboard features are available on both Android and iOS, while the Arts & Culture website was also recently revamped.

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Avatar for Abner Li Abner Li

Editor-in-chief. Interested in the minutiae of Google and Alphabet. Tips/talk: abner@9to5g.com