App turns your smartphone into a museum – Techworld

Application Arts & amp; Culture received update for Google Cardboard solution for virtual reality company

not everyone has the opportunity to closely see works of renowned painters, exhibited in museums around the world. But one of the Google project aims to expand access to these collections, as to visit the Van Gogh Museum in the Netherlands, you do not even leave the house.

In the last five years, the Google Cultural Institute It has formed partnerships with more than 1,100 institutions to bring their collections to a sort of virtual museum, with tours at 360 degrees from the company’s browser and the Arts & amp app; Culture, it launched last year. But this week, an update to the app turns your smartphone into a powerful portal to meet such works.

Available for Android and iOS , the app now brings compatibility with Google Cardboard and a new tool called Art Recognizer, this makes the museum visit into a multimedia experience.

The virtual reality tours let you explore locations by clicking forward and backward along a predetermined route, while an audio tells what you’re looking. The experience is much more immersive than 360 hits on the Google browser already allowed.

Although not replace the real experience of visiting a museum, the application is interesting as visitors can learn more about artists and their works while virtually visit the museum.

Since the Art Recognizer allows the user to point your camera phone at a painting, for example, and Google software will recognize the work and deliver related information, including where audio clips, video and artist information on your phone.

For now, the last feature is in beta only the Dulwich Picture Gallery in London and the Art Gallery of New South Wales in Sydney.