As if Google hasn’t already done enough to streamline how we get our information, the company’s Cultural Institute just did for art and design what Google Streetview did for maps.
With works and artifacts from more than a thousand museums across 70 countries, the company’s new and improved Google Arts & Culture website and app lets users explore “anything from cats in art since 200 BCE to the color red in Abstract Expressionism, and everything in between.”
Designed to help people around the world become more immersed in cultural experiences across art, design, history and wonders of the world, the new platform even goes as far as having a Shazam-like Art Recognizer feature that can pull up historical information from nearly any museum piece just by holding your phone camera to it. For more specific details, such as materials, users can explore simply by searching by material type.
Of course, it wouldn’t be a proper Google app without some sort of Cardboard VR integration. Those that have one of the low-cost setups will even be able to explore collections in an immersive environment.
Google Arts & Culture is currently available on iOS, Android and in a Web Viewer.
