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The Smithsonian Air and Space Museum will close for at least six months in 2022
The Smithsonian will close the Air and Space Museum for at least six months starting in March.
Italian museum uses cameras to gauge the attractiveness of art
Italy's museums have begun rolling out a camera system that can measure how satisfied visitors are with a work of art.
Nintendo is turning one of its old factories into a museum
Nintendo is repurposing an old factory into a gallery showcasing the products it has launched over the course of the company's history.
360-degree virtual tours are easier to make with Insta360 and Matterport
Matterport has added the Insta360 One R camera to the beta release of its Capture app, with full integration due in October.
British Museum makes over half of its collection viewable online
The British Museum is helping history buffs during the pandemic by making over half its collection, and 1.9 million images, available online.
ASMR becomes a brain tingling art form in a new exhibition
Originally intended to be a live installation prior to the coronavirus pandemic, it’s s now being presented to the public as a “virtual vernissage” that can be enjoyed online. The show delves into the pre- and post-internet history of ASMR.
The fight to save the UK's National Videogame Museum
The National Videogame Museum (NVM) is under threat. The building is one of the only permanent museums dedicated to video game culture in the UK, alongside the Centre for Computing History in Cambridge. But like so many other brick-and-mortar businesses, it's been forced to close its doors during the coronavirus pandemic.
Smithsonian opens up 2.8 million images to the public
The Smithsonian Institution is releasing a whopping 2.8 million high-res, two- and three-dimensional images from its collections to a new Open Access online platform. The material comes from all 19 Smithsonian museums, nine research centers, libraries, archives and the National Zoo, and it's available for free to anyone with a web browser.
Time Magazine is recreating the 'I Have a Dream' speech in VR
For many people, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s March on Washington and the famous "I Have a Dream" speech exist as little more than photos and soundbites -- only the 200,000-plus people who were there can give you a sense of what it was really like. Time Magazine, however, hopes to recreate that experience as best it can. It's releasing a virtual reality museum experience, The March, that will recreate King and his speech in VR for the first time. The exhibit will use a mix of photogrammetry (taking measurements from photos), motion capture, AI and 3D rendering to give a sense of what it was like to see King speak in front of the Lincoln Memorial on August 28th, 1963.
Daimler and Bosch inch closer to fully automated, self-driving valet service
Daimler has plans for self-driving trucks, autonomous taxis and cars that drive themselves on the autobahn. Now, it's moving forward with its vision to bring fully automated, driverless parking to the Mercedes-Benz Museum parking garage in Stuttgart, Germany. The system, a joint effort with Bosch, will allow visitors to park their autonomous vehicles with a few taps of an app.
NASA reopens Apollo mission control in time for Moon landing anniversary
The fiftieth anniversary of the Apollo 11 Moon landing is rapidly approaching, and NASA is determined to mark it in a fitting way: by restoring the hub of Apollo's operations to its former glory. The agency has reopened Apollo mission control at the Johnson Space Center after a restoration that makes it look like it did in 1969. There's functioning electronics, familiar furniture and other attentions to detail. The New York Times noted that there are even period-appropriate soft drink cans and cigarettes.
Moog museum tells the history of popular synthesized music
There's no doubt that Bob Moog had a massive influence on music by making synthesizers popular and accessible, and now there's a dedicated place to pay homage to his legacy. The Bob Moog Foundation has opened the Moogseum, a museum in Asheville, North Carolina that includes static and interactive exhibits devoted to its namesake's synths as well as other electronic instruments.
LA museum's sci-fi car exhibit includes HoloLens tours
There's a chance you've seen a movie car or two if you've visited a convention, but the Petersen Automotive Museum's offering should be more... elaborate. It's opening a "Hollywood Dream Machines" exhibit that will showcase 40 vehicles from sci-fi games and movies. Some of them are practically expected, like the DeLorean from Back to the Future, Deckard's sedan from Blade Runner and a lightcycle from Tron: Legacy. Others, however, are harder-to-see items like the GM Ultralight from Demolition Man as well as Lexuses from Black Panther and Minority Report. And how many times are you going to see life-size recreations of a Warthog from Halo or a Sparrow from Destiny?
NYC's hip-hop museum will include iPad graffiti and a VR theater
Hip-hop and rap were not only instrumental in defining modern music, but in defining the technology behind that music. It's only fitting, then, that a major museum dedicated to the genres will be shaped by tech. New York City has confirmed that the Universal Hip-Hop Museum will start construction in the Bronx at 65 East 149th Street in winter 2019, and tech-driven exhibits will play a central role. The creators (including rap legend Kurtis Blow) plan on a virtual graffiti station that translates iPad drawings to an external building projector, holograms and a VR theater to "put you at the center of the show."
Virgin Galactic donates SpaceShipTwo rocket motor to the Smithsonian
You might see a piece of private spaceflight history on display when you visit Washington, DC in the future. Virgin Galactic has donated SpaceShipTwo's (VSS Unity) historic rocket motor to the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum. This is the powerplant that took the craft into space for the first time this past December, and represents both "technical achievement" as well as proof of what you can do through "entrepreneurial innovation," according to museum director Ellen Stofan.
Salvador Dali's AI clone will welcome visitors to his museum
If you're planning a trip to the Dali Museum this spring, you might meet an unexpected guest: namely, Salvador Dali himself. The St. Petersburg, Florida venue has announced that an AI recreation of the artist will grace screens across the museum starting in April. A team from Goodby Silverstein & Partners used footage of Dali to train a machine learning system on how to mimic the artist's face, and superimposed that on an actor with a similar physique. The virtual painter will both draw on Dali's own writings as well as comment on events that happened well after his 1989 death -- it should at once be educational and as surreal as Dali's work.
'David Bowie Is' AR exhibit puts Ziggy Stardust on your phone
Sony Music has a fitting tribute for David Bowie on what would have been his 72nd birthday: its promised virtual museum exhibit dedicated to the music legend. David Bowie Is has launched for both Android and iOS, giving you an augmented reality tour of memorabilia that previously required a lengthy physical visit. You'll see famous costumes, photos, handwritten notes and videos, including items that were either limited to the Brooklyn Museum appearance or are exclusive to the app. You can see documents and props from the Blackstar era, watch live performances and glimpse at footage from the experimental DIamond Dogs movie.
Google opens virtual version of fire-ravaged Brazil museum
A couple of years before a fire devastated the National Museum of Brazil in Rio de Janeiro in September, Google's Arts and Culture team started working with the museum to digitize the collection. Just a few months after the inferno, Google has reopened the museum's doors -- albeit in a virtual form using Street View imagery and digital exhibits.
Become one with art at Tokyo's psychedelic digital museum
Japan's TeamLab has created some of the most trippy, interactive and Instagram-able digital art installations ever. It's only fitting, then, that the group is getting its own digital museum in Tokyo, thanks to developer Mori and Epson. The Mori Building Digital Art Museum has 100,000 square feet of exhibition space, with around 50 installations that generate imagery thanks to 520 computers, 470 projectors and numerous motion sensors.
Video Game Hall of Fame inducts ‘Tomb Raider’ and ‘Final Fantasy VII’
The Strong museum has announced this year's inductees to the World Video Game Hall of Fame -- Spacewar!, John Madden Football, Tomb Raider and Final Fantasy VII. They were selected from 12 finalists that also included Asteroids, Call of Duty, Dance Dance Revolution, Half-Life, King's Quest, Metroid, Minecraft and Ms. Pac-Man. "The four inductees span multiple decades, countries of origin, and gaming platforms, but all have significantly affected the video game industry, popular culture, and society in general," said The Strong museum in a statement. Tomb Raider and Final Fantasy VII were finalists last year.
