Google’s “art selfie” app, which helps you find a classic portrait that you most resemble, took social media by storm a few weeks back. Even celebrities got in on the fun. But Google’s commitment to bringing the world of art to a wider audience goes beyond just selfies, as shown by some new apps from its Arts & Culture Experiments division.
First up is Art Palette, which is all about color. It’s a search engine that finds and categorizes artworks based on the colors you choose. You can either upload a picture, or just play around with the different color combinations at the top of the screen. The algorithm uses machine learning to sift through thousands of images that match the color palette you uploaded.
It’s a great way to see how different colors look together and will likely give you some inspiration for adding some art to your own house or apartment.
Next is Life Tags, a collection of more than 40 million images from the iconic magazine. Life was like the Pinterest of the 20th century, a glossy full-sized magazine that ran from 1936 to 1972. The images captured in the pages of Life are a fascinating digital encyclopedia, and Google’s neural network uses a specialized photo search to categorize and tag the photos for browsing.
Each image has multiple labels associated with it, depending on what the Google annotation algorithm “sees” in the picture, and those associations can be viewed as dotted lines on the picture. This one’s a real rabbit hole — be prepared to spend several hours exploring a fascinating photographic history of the 20th century as you jump from astronauts to roller derbies to suspension bridges, and everything in between.
Both of these new apps can be found in the Arts & Culture Experiments section of Google’s site. Making art more accessible is the aim of the project, Amit Sood told the Telegraph. The Google Art project began with 17 museums and now includes 1,600.
“In the West we are so used to having these masterpieces and this cultural heritage on our doorstep,” he said. “But not every country will be able to build hundreds of physical structures and acquire hundreds of millions of artworks. It’s just not practical.”
“Museums have a role to make their spaces different,” he added. “I think this is not a problem, this is an opportunity, because you are changing the definition of the word ‘museum’ from it being a building.”
Apple is less than a day away from launching its highly anticipated OLED MacBook Pro with a touch-sensitive screen. But it appears that the upgrade is going to cost a pretty penny. According to a report by Bloomberg, Apple is reportedly eyeing a starting price of $2,899 for the 14-inch MacBook Pro, while the 16-inch version could start at $3,399 in the US.
"At $2,899, the 14-inch model would mark the highest starting price for a new MacBook Pro model, surpassing the $2,799 Apple charged for a 17-inch version introduced in 2006," says the report. The report claims that Apple is targeting a minimum price hike of $400 for its upcoming redesigned 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pro models.
I've spent a good amount of time digging into the spec sheet of the new M6 MacBook Pro (14-inch), and for all intents and purposes, this is a classic Apple "chip and connectivity" refresh. It's not a full redesign. The chassis, Liquid Retina XDR panel, speakers, ports, and battery, all of them carry over unchanged.
However, the M6 brings more cores, stronger on-device AI, higher memory bandwidth on the larger configs, and modern wireless. Here’s the practical rundown of what actually improved, and whether those gains are worth your money.
Two new highly requested iCloud plugins just got added to ChatGPT, giving people who rely on Apple’s Mail and Calendar services a way to search emails, check appointments, and manage their schedules directly through the chatbot.
The integration is rolling out to all ChatGPT plans, including the free tier. You can access it on the web, desktop, and iOS.