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The New York Times brings Bowie exhibit to your phone with AR
Now that Google has released its first take on an Android augmented reality framework, ARCore 1.0, quite a few AR apps are taking advantage of it. The New York Times, who has already released an AR experience around Olympic athletes for iOS, is now launching a new AR feature that focuses on David Bowie's "visual legacy." This is also one of the few AR experiences that supports both ARKit and ARCore, making it available on both iOS and Android.
Step inside the Unabomber investigation in VR
In 1996, law enforcement officials arrested Ted Kaczynski, aka the Unabomber, after nearly two decades of investigation. But it wasn't until the Washington Post and the New York Times published Kaczynski's anonymous 35,000-word manifesto that a tip from his brother David led officials to Kaczynski and his isolated cabin in Montana. The massive nationwide hunt for the Unabomber, whose seemingly random attacks with lack of traceable evidence stumped law enforcement officials for years, is an interesting case and one that the Newseum in Washington DC has hosted an exhibit on for the past few years -- a display that includes Kaczynski's actual cabin. The exhibit has also featured a VR experience that let visitors explore the cabin from the perspective of an FBI agent, decide whether to publish the manifesto and even disarm the live bomb found in Kaczynski's cabin. Now, Variety reports, Unabomber: The Virtual Reality Experience is available for anyone to explore.
Museum of African American History is freely digitizing home movies
Humanity has access to more data than ever before, but there's still so much media scattered around the world that might rot away before it can be preserved. The National Museum of African American History and Culture is launching an initiative to save some of the most precious -- home movies -- by digitizing, for free, any and all films that folks want to bring in to the Washington, DC institution.
'The Daily Show' celebrates the tweets of Donald Trump in new exhibit
The president tweets a lot. It's quickly becoming part of his legacy, offering an unprecedented level of access to the commander in chief and leaving others in government scrambling to deal with the after-effects of each post. Usually, reflections on presidential legacies tend to come at the end of the individual's term in office, with an official presidential library foremost on the list. However, given the current pace of the Trump administration, The Daily Show decided to act a little sooner. This weekend it opened its own presidential Twitter library in midtown Manhattan to illustrate how our interactions with the president may have changed forever.
Google's virtual museum tours tell you more about the art
Google has built tools to explore art since 2011, when it began uploading gigapixel images of classic pieces. The tech titan introduced museum floor plans and walking tour info to Google Maps as well as its Art and Culture app, released last July, to dive deep into collections. Now the search giant is combining all those efforts, adding annotations to famous works seen in Street View to give users on digital tours of museums all the artistic context shown to folks walking around the actual institution.
Museums use CT scans to take the mystery out of mummies
Most of us have a rather cinematic view of mummies: a bandaged body rising out of a sarcophagus, stumbling toward whoever just disturbed their slumber. Of course, this could never happen and not just for supernatural reasons. Mummies are wrapped up pretty tight and are just too old and fragile to do anything. In fact, they're often too delicate for scientists to even study them, meaning many human remains have sat in storage for more than a century. However, an exhibit making its way to New York's American History of Natural History today not only takes them out of the warehouse, but also tells us more about the people wrapped inside, thanks to some help from modern technology.
Google opens massive virtual collection of US presidential history
If you're an American history buff, you're in luck. To celebrate President's Day, Google arts and culture team has just kicked off a monumental historical project focusing on our country's top office with the American Democracy program.
The Strong Museum will open a 'Women in Games' exhibit in 2018
"Women have indelibly shaped every aspect of the history of video games, and that story needs to be better documented and told." That's Jon-Paul Dyson, director of the International Center for the History of Electronic Games at The Strong museum in Rochester, New York. This week, The Strong revealed its plans for a Women in Games initiative that aims to document the contributions of women in the fields of computer science and video games. Women are already included in The Strong's existing exhibits and archives, but Dyson says their work has been "underappreciated" overall.
LA beats out SF to host George Lucas' art museum
Unbeknownst to some, Los Angeles and San Francisco had been clashing for months on yet another front: Which would win the right to build an elaborate, expansive museum housing film ephemera and personal art collected by George Lucas. As is only proper for the nexus of cinema, Hollywood won the fight. Yes, the upcoming museum will feature choice souvenirs from the Star Wars franchise, but it aims to be a serious institution with the money to back it up. Lucas will allegedly front $1 billion himself in construction costs and art as well as the creation of a $400 million endowment fund.
Google Tango AR takes you inside a mummy's sarcophagus
Everyone thinks augmented reality (AR) is loaded with potential, but what besides Pokémon Go can you actually do with it? Google is providing a concrete example by bringing its Tango technology to museums. At the Detroit Institute of Arts, visitors will be able to snag a Lenovo Phab 2 Pro phone and explore Egyption mummies and other exhibits. The tech will let you peer "inside" a sarcophagus, for instance, to see ancient skeletons and other hidden artifacts.
Google's new museum tours bring dinosaurs to life
With Google's help, museums and cultural institutions all over the world have been able to open up their archives to millions of people who wouldn't otherwise get the opportunity to visit. The Art and Culture app combines the best Street View, VR and Photos collections from 1,000 museums, whether they're focusing on famous art pieces or creatures that walked the Earth millions of years ago. Today, the search giant has expanded its collection to include thousands of natural history exhibits, letting you walk (and swim) with dinosaurs and learn more about the worlds that time forgot.
A digital 'totem' leads the way in one of New York's oldest museums
Museums, for all the wonders they contain, have a reputation for being staid and musty. At their worst they've even been described as mausoleums. That's a problem when it comes to exhibits about an active, living culture like the Haida people of British Columbia. The American Museum of Natural History has taken it upon itself to change that perception of the native groups of the Pacific Northwest, implementing new technologies in its oldest hall to educate millions of visitors about these thousands of people living on the other side of the continent.
Become a Starfleet cadet at the Intrepid's new Star Trek exhibit
Star Trek turns 50 this September, and while fans will have to wait until next year for a taste of the new TV show, they can still have their own immersive Trek experience this summer at the Intrepid Sea, Air & Space Museum in New York. If you've ever wanted to helm a starship, sit in the captain's chair or try your hand at the infamously impossible Kobayashi Maru exam, the Starfleet Academy Experience will give you that chance. And while you're there, you can also take a little walk through the past half of a century of Star Trek history.
Prince Online Museum revisits the musician's web history
The late, great Prince may have declared that the internet was over, but he was its biggest fan in some ways. His websites were frequently grand projects that pushed the limits of both web design and digital music. And now, it's easy to see this effort first-hand. Former Prince webmaster Sam Jennings has launched the Prince Online Museum, a timeline-based trip through some of the musician's websites over the past 20 years.
Pro Football Hall of Fame brings in holographic coaches
Think visiting a sports hall of fame involves little more than looking at athletes' relics? The Pro Football Hall of Fame wants to liven things up a bit. It's introducing the A Game for Life exhibit, where holographic versions (sadly, not likely true holograms) of famous figures like Joe Namath and Vince Lombardi will deliver pep talks and convey just how hard it is to make the Hall of Fame. This isn't just a glorified slideshow, either. The exhibition theater uses 15 projectors and 360-degree audio to give the NFL veterans more of a presence, and Rudy screenwriter Angelo Pizzo helped produce the script.
Google's gigapixel Art Camera captures the subtle details
The ability to browse a museum's library of art online isn't a recent development, but Google's Cultural Institute is improving that activity. The company built a camera specifically for capturing works of art in a way that displays detail as if you were walking up to in a museum. In order to fully appreciate a piece, you need to observe the brush strokes, textures and any otherwise hidden items up close, and that's exactly what this high-res camera allows you to do.
Team behind 'Shadow Moses' to focus on 'Metal Gear' VR museum
Shadow Moses was intended to be a Metal Gear Solid fan remake, but development came to a halt last month over copyright issues. As a result, the group behind that project, iRam Gamer, has now shifted focus to creating a virtual reality museum honoring the franchise. Called The Fan Legacy: Metal Gear Solid, its designers are quick to label the VR experience as unofficial and non-profit. Still, given how the situation with Shadow Moses played out, there's a chance Konami won't feel appreciative. If all goes according to plan, though, iRig Gamer hopes to release The Fan Legacy: Metal Gear Solid in May.
Explore New York's Guggenheim museum with Google's help
When it isn't capturing (tiny) city streets and picturesque locations, Google's Street View team also catalogs the collections of some of the world's most iconic cultural buildings. With help from the Google Cultural Institute, we've already explored the 4,500 artifacts inside the British Museum, but for its latest project, the organisation has hopped back across the Atlantic to New York and inside the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum.
Design the 18th century wig of your dreams
If you've got a few hours to kill, London's prestigious Victoria and Albert Museum has just launched an app called "Design a Wig" that lets you design a magnificent 18th century perruque. Even if you've never remotely desired to do such a thing, it's pretty addictive. You start by drawing a crest of hair in any shape you want, add frilly accessories like fans, ribbons or even an entire ship, top it off with powder and Adzooks! You've got yourself a society-ready wig.
Explore 4,500 British Museum artifacts with Google's help
The British Museum in London holds an array of beautiful and historically significant artifacts including the Rosetta Stone, which helped historians to understand the ancient hieroglyphics used in Egypt. Today, the organisation is teaming up with Google to bring its various collections online as part of the Google Cultural Institute. The search giant has been developing this resource for years by continually visiting and archiving exhibits around the world. With the British Museum, an extra 4,500 objects and artworks are being added to its collection, complete with detailed photos and descriptions.
