The ROM is bringing dinosaurs back to life (through the magic of a smart phone app)

Cultural institutions are really starting to get tech savvy: last week, the AGO launched Express Yourself, an Instagram-like app; and now the ROM has launched Ultimate Dinosaurs, a smart phone application that uses augmented reality to bring the fossils on display back from the dead. Users point their phones at markers throughout the museum, and the dinosaurs are reborn as living, breathing creatures on the screen. (If that smart phone screen isn’t big enough, there will also be iPads mounted throughout the exhibit.) The ROM’s assistant vice-president of marketing Tracy Ruddell said, “As a museum we’re all about real-world objects… but being able to bring prehistoric dinosaurs back to life was a pretty amazing thing.” Amazing, yes—as long as it doesn’t turn out like this.