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In Jakarta today, we invited kids from SDN 03 Menteng Elementary School to join us on a virtual field trip to cultural heritage sites around the country. With new 360 degree imagery of the temples at Borobodur, Prambanan and Ratu Boko, the Sangiran Early Man Site, and some of the country's top museums, a class of 3rd graders was able to experience these wonders of Indonesia in an immersive way with a simple virtual reality viewer like Google Cardboard. 

Look at how delighted everyone was!

There was plenty more of Indonesia's rich heritage for them to explore on the Google Arts & Culture platform. 

We recently brought our new Art Camera to Indonesia to capture and digitally preserve collections at Museum Tekstil and Galeri Batik YBI. Using the custom-built Art Camera, we're able to digitize more artwork—including very fragile pieces such as decades-old batik fabric—in ultra high resolution, more quickly than ever possible before. This in turn allows more people to explore artwork in much greater detail.

We have over 200 examples of the finest batik for you to explore in high resolution. Zoom in to see every detail of these colorfully printed textiles, discovering secret patterns and hidden stories that bring these national treasures to life. 

We invite you to explore more of these wonders from all our partners in Indonesia — Agung Rai Museum of Art (ARMA), Galeri Batik YBI, Museum Nasional Indonesia, Museum Tekstil dan Museum Seni Rupa & Keramik, Museum Purbakala Sangiran, Monumen Nasional, Taman Wisata Candi Borobudur, Prambanan & Ratu Boko, and Yayasan Biennale Yogyakarta. 

Go on your own field trip today by visiting Google Arts & Culture on the web, on iOS and Android. 

Last night in Japan, the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) live-streamed a program called "KIBO SCIENCE 360 - A SPACE EXPERIMENT with Google" on its YouTube Channel. Astronaut Takuya Onishi broadcasted live  from the Kibo Experimental Module inside the International Space Station (ISS) and talked to popular YouTube creator Hajime Shacho and astronaut Akihiko Hoshide on the ground. He also performed some fun experiments. If you've ever wondered what it's like mixing liquids in outer space, check out how Takuya prepares coffee with milk. 

If you have a Google Cardboard, you can experience — in virtual reality — what it's like being in space, and have a go at completing missions in low gravity.  Just download the Kibo Science 360 app, available on Google Play.

To really get into the spirit of things, download the super cool design for your own special Cardboard viewer that you can make yourself (instructions unfortunately only in Japanese.)

If you've opened the Google Cast app recently, you might have noticed we've been hinting at some exciting changes. With the recent announcement of Google Home, our new voice-activated speaker, we are renaming the Google Cast app to the Google Home app. So you now have a one-stop destination to manage your compatible home devices. On top of the new name, we gave it a new icon, made the app easier to use, and added some useful new features.

New design to make it even easier to watch & discover.

Using the Watch tab, you can discover trending and popular video content on your Chromecast-enabled apps like HBO Now, Netfilx, Hulu, YouTube, and Google Play Movies.

The Discover tab lets you explore a library of 1000+ apps that work with Chromecast, as well as the latest offers, features, and tips.

And you can search and browse for content across Chromecast-enabled apps right in the Google Home app anytime -- just look for the magnifying glass icon in the bottom right hand corner.

Control and manage your Chromecast and Google Home devices.

The Google Home app is also your one place to control and manage all your Chromecast and Google Home devices. Tap the Devices icon in the top right of the home screen to easily set up a new device, control playback or adjust Backdrop settings on your TV, and more.

The Google Home app will be coming this week on Google Play and the App Store, so keep your eyes open on your homescreen or app drawer for the new app icon. And stay tuned for more updates with the app as Google Home becomes available in the US in early November.

Most of us are familiar with photo filters that give our photos a vintage look or a warm glow. But recently, a whole new kind of "art filters" have emerged that turn photos into works of art that resemble famous paintings — like "Starry Night" by Van Gogh or "The Scream" by Munch. When I first saw my friends posting these photo-painting hybrids, I thought a) they look really cool, and b) how do they actually work???

So Lo and I talked to some research scientists at Google to find out. It turns out these so-called filters aren't filters at all, but a far more complex and interesting process called style transfer. Style transfer apps use deep neural networks (a technique in machine learning) to look at images, determine what's content in one and style in another, then synthesize them together into an image that's a combination of both. And cooler still — a team at Google has been working on technology that can combine multiple styles in a single transfer, in real time. You can read their full post on the Research Blog.

Watch the video above for more info on how style transfer works, and to see me turn a photo of my dog into a Kandinsky-esque work of art.