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The ever innovative Google, have tried their hands again at the smartphone market, this time the device is able to map the world around... Google Announces Project Tango

The ever innovative Google, have tried their hands again at the smartphone market, this time the device is able to map the world around you using a series of sensors, the phone’s cameras and a powerful vision processor. The sensor enriched smartphone works around a 5 inch screen.  The name of the prototype is Tango.

The concept smartphone has the ability to map the world around you in a 3D model. Project Tango will assist users in creating indoor maps, which will help navigate not only its user, but also then future devices, which operate in the home and workplace. Google has 200 development kits that it will be make available to developers in a approx 3 weeks time, in mid-March.

Project Tango

The hardware in Project Tango is comparable to that of Microsoft’s Kinect, albeit in a smaller container. The 5 inch prototype can track motion in full 3D, it does this by making over a quarter million 3D measurements every single second. The Tango device then takes these measurements and constructs a 3D model of the surrounding environment.

Project Tango is still very much in the early stages of development. Google currently has 200 development kits available, and will be distributing the available units by March 14th, 2014. Google is going to allocate the units for developers who will be creating apps in the sphere of mapping and indoor navigation and also games, which make use of physical space and algorithms for processing data. Being renowned for ‘thinking outside the box’ Google probably would accept the more creative of uses for its Tango hardware, but who knows?

If you’re interested in maybe getting  your creative thinking cap on and  trying for one of the 200 Project Tango developers units, why not head over to the Project Tango webpage and complete the application form?

[Image via igen]

SOURCE: http://m.intomobile.com/2014/02/20/google-announces-project-tango-smartphone/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+IntoMobile+%28IntoMobile%29