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Google Launches Virtual Tour Of White House

By R. Siva Kumar | Update Date: Dec 21, 2015 10:11 PM EST

Would you like to tour the White House?

Well you can, and you don't need to become the President for that. Nor do you need his permission.

Google can take you through the White House through its educational software, Google Expeditions, which was launched in September but hasn't come out in the open. Today, it has released a 360-degree video tour of the White House's "holiday setup", showing the décor of the house, with narration and slideshows filling up the video tour.

Lasting for five minutes, the video can be showcased in 2D as well as 3D images. Like a slideshow, it exhibits 180-degree stills of the innumerable rooms in the Presidential residence.

The Google cardboard and novel Go Pro rig were harnessed to showcase the 360 videos. So it is possible to experience the White House as if it were home.

However, there are many critics who believe that most of the shots that were taken for the video were panoramic, not all of which seemed interesting. The video did not engage the viewer in real life experiences, but looked like a documentary, according to The REM.

The Jump camera rig had been used to do all the filming. There is quite a lot of meeting with his dog, Bo, that is interesting too.

"The White House is a place plenty of people will never go and a virtual tour is theoretically enlightening. Unfortunately, this video sort of feels like you're a 10-year-old being dragged down the corridors by an underpaid tour guide. Maybe I'm cynical. Ok, I'm cynical. But this could have been amazing. One day, when the tools to create virtual reality are better-and more people know how to create high-quality experiences----it will be," Gizmodo's Mario Aguilar said.

Still, it isn't too bad an idea to get some glimpses of the President's house without dropping in there. The video is "a mix of static images, movies and a narrative that provides the atmosphere of a guided tour", according to PC Mag. Try out the video, it isn't too bad---even if it could be improved.

YouTube/White House

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