Project Tango: Google’s new prototype Android phone

Earlier today, Google announced its latest Android phone titled “Project Tango”.  This new Android phone experiments with robotics and computer vision to map out the world around you.  Project lead, Johnny Lee, stated, “The goal of Project Tango is to give mobile devices a human-scale understanding of space and motion.”

The phone itself measures five inches and includes a few sensors (4 MP camera and a motion tracking camera) that allow the phone to make over a quarter of a million 3D measurements every second.  These measurements help the phone update its position, in real-time, and combines all of the data into a single 3D model of the world around you (video below).

This new phone opens up a lot of doors for new features on current smartphones. Chase Cobb stated, “imagine that you scan a small section of your living room and then are able to generate a little game world in it, I don’t know of any controller or gaming device that can do that at the moment.” Besides that, there has also been talk suggesting that these new phones have the ability to help the visually impaired navigate unfamiliar areas with ease. Pretty cool huh?

Well good news to any developers out there. Google is planning on shipping out 200 prototypes and dev kits of Project Tango to “developers with dreams of creating more than a touch-screen app.”  There is an application online for anyone who is interested in trying to get their hands on this device, here.

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