Seated Statue of Hatshepsut, as seen in "The Met Unframed" augmented reality experience. Yesterday, the Metropolitan Museum of Art launched “The Met Unframed,” an augmented reality phone experience extending its treasures to your smartphone screen. The initiative is a partnership with Verizon, the telecommunications giant that, as the “Met Unframed” press release helpfully reminds us, “generated revenues of $131.9 billion in 2019.” Good to know. The initiative stacks several ideas on top of one another into one hybrid experience that will have you pawing at your phone screen in alternating states of bemusement and irritation. First, it’s a virtual museum tour that plops you into a version of the Met Museum, Google Street View-style. But, note, it’s not a virtual version of the actual Met Museum as you have known it. The spaces here, captured in 3D, “evoke or nearly replicate” it. Their layout “creatively arranges a sampling of galleries,” so that you circle in a much smaller museum that concentrates on 50 greatest hits.