Google Art & Culture App's Selfie Matching Feature Comes to India

HIGHLIGHTS

• The app was previously best to know for showing famous artworks
• Last week, it gained viral popularity thanks to its viral nature
• However, at launch, the feature was limited to a few countries

While the belief 'there are seven lookalikes in the world' may not be true to the word, according to Google Arts & Culture app there is a portrait in some corner of the world that looks like you. The app's selfie matching feature, which matched your selfie with a museum portrait somewhere in the world, was launched last week and quickly became a viral sensation. On Friday, Google announced the selfie matching feature is now available in India. 

Using computer vision technology, the Google Arts & Culture app matches a user's selfie with art from the collections of art museums worldwide that it has in its database. While the application tries to find the nearest match, it shows an estimated percentage of visual similarity between the face and the artwork. The feature is available in the Google Arts & Culture app on both Android (Google Play Store) and iOS (App Store).

"At Google Arts & Culture, our software engineers are always experimenting with new and creative ways to connect you with art and culture. That's how this selfie feature came about, too," a Google spokesperson said.

Since its first roll-out, people have used the feature by taking over 30 million selfies.

"Looking at the success in the US, we are excited to roll this feature to other countries, including
India," the spokesperson said.

Through the new feature, the application connects users to more than 6,000 exhibitions, from more than 1,500 museum partners across 70 countries. The virtual art platform hosts millions of artifacts and pieces of art, ranging from prehistory to the contemporary, shared by museums across the world.