The Google Arts & Culture app is suddenly trending as users discover a new feature that matches people with their look-alikes in the world of fine art.
The feature is powered by facial recognition, which is the same technology behind security features such as Apple's FaceID, OnePlus' Face Unlock, and Windows Hello.
Google Arts & Culture App Surges In Popularity
The Google Arts & Culture app, which is more than two years old, offers several features such as visual searches for famous art pieces and virtual museum tours. Despite its age, the free app surged to the top of the Google Play Store and the Apple App Store due to a new feature that was launched in mid-December.
The feature allows users to take a selfie, which Google's visual search technology then analyzes. The app then looks through its database to identify the piece of art that resembles the user's selfie the most. The app indicates the percentage of similarity between the selfie and the artwork, with results varying among users.
Social media is now starting to fill up with the matches that users get on the Google Arts & Culture app's new feature. While some results are impressive, such as the one posted by comedian Kumail Nanjiani, some are downright hilarious, such as the one that gave a 100 percent match to a bizarre piece of art.
Hey this one ain't so bad. pic.twitter.com/er0FxZNVO8
— Kumail Nanjiani (@kumailn) January 13, 2018
WOW this Google Arts and Culture app that matches your selfie to art is so accurate it's scary!!!!!!! pic.twitter.com/Peiky9Qil8 — emkateultra (@emkateultra) January 15, 2018
The Google Arts & Culture app is available in the United States, except for Illinois and Texas. There is no word from Google on when the app will be introduced to these two states and to the rest of the world.
Here's How The App's Selfie Matching Feature Works
After downloading the app, users can scroll down to the portion with the title "Is your portrait in a museum?" After pressing "Get Started," the app launches the camera to allow the user to take a selfie. Users can take as many selfies as they want at different angles, which may result in different matches each time.
To enable the trending feature, Google utilizes facial recognition, which examines the physical features of faces to distinguish people from one another. The technology detects faces in images, identifies the unique characteristics, then compares it to information inside a database. In the case of the Google Arts & Culture app's new feature, this database includes more than 70,000 works of art contained in 1,200 museums and galleries across 70 countries.
