Google brings AR animals into the Search App

A new card in Google Search will bring virtual animals into your space—if you have an augmented reality-enabled phone, that is. This new feature is one of the many introduced at this year’s I/O developer conference. The feature works on animals like cats, dogs, pandas, alpine goats, angler fish, lions, timberwolves, bears, European hedgehogs, tigers, and emperor penguins. When you do a search for these animals, a card saying “Meet a life-sized [animal] up close” will pop up. In the same card, you’ll see a “View in your own space” button to place the virtual animal into your environment.

Like any AR sticker, you can move these around or resize them. The animals even come with sound effects. You can see the dog bark and scratch its ears or the panda chews on a piece of bamboo. If you have a device ready to support this feature, you’ll need to allow it to access your camera and storage for the first time you use the feature.

Source: Engadget