Technology is typically a double-edged sword. These days it’s safe to assume that any consumer electronics product that begins with the word “smart” might make your life more convenient but you can also bet it’s going to compromise the hell out of your privacy in some way.

I’m a self-professed gadget/tech geek of the highest order. These days it takes quite a bit to wow me but yesterday Google did just that with their new Arts and Culture App.

I had seen article after article about the app the day before trying it. The app is a year old but, somehow, is just now going viral on social media. Why?

Just recently Google devised an ingenious gimmick to make the app more popular. It goes like this, if you take a selfie it will match your picture to a subject in a famous piece of art. There’s nothing like a little nod to people’s narcissistic tendencies to get the word out about your product. Hey, it worked for me.

I was talking to my wife on the phone while she was driving home from work (hence the earbuds) and I thought I’d give it a shot. The results were astounding.

It matched me with Giovanni Battista Moroni’s, “Portrait of a Gentleman (‘Il Gentile Cavaliere') from 1564-5.

The resemblance was beyond anything that I expected. This uncanny match caused me to take a deep dive into the history of both the artwork and the artist. This was a completely unplanned detour into the UK’s National Gallery and sixteenth century art that I wouldn’t have ever taken otherwise. Pretty cool, right?

Also, this is absolutely ingenious marketing on Google’s part. It dawned on me that they got me to expand my cultural horizons and all it cost me was the biometric signature of my face, which they will likely use in a variety of ways that I dare not even think about. Creepy.

Would you like to try it yourself? If so Click Here to read more about how the Arts & Culture app works. It's available for both Apple and Android devices.

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