Google’s Project Tango

Google recently formalized a new project, Tango, based on a Smartphone equipped with many sensors, with the goal to bring her understanding of space and movement. Google Tango is nothing but a Smartphone which can understand its environment. The Mountain View Company wants to put the prototype model in the hands of developers next month for applications or games can take advantage of.

The objective of this project is to enable applications or games to take advantage of the environment located around the person. In the examples given by Google, so it is about power to help guide a visually impaired in an unfamiliar environment. Games could also use user environment like a map. The ATAP team (Advanced Technology and Projects) Google has unveiled the Tango project, a prototype Smartphone that can "see" world around him in 3D views.

Prototypes will arrive in the hands of developers in March to “invent new experiences." On the outside, the device is a basic Smartphone of 5 inches. This prototype Android Smartphone can learn and map the environment around the user. Directed by ATAP team, this mobile includes various measurement sensors to track movements in 3D. It is advertised as capable of carrying 250,000 measurements per second, updating its position in space and orientation in real time. The amount of data is “1 Myriad “processed by specialized image processing processors.

Two processors for a vision depth sensor and two cameras assigned for motion tracking, equip this prototype Smartphone out of Google labs. Specifically, Google has taken advantage of the onboard camera, a beast 4MP sensor, and it has added a sensor motion tracking and a depth sensor. But the heart of the beast lies in its two processors dedicated to the "vision” that calculate real-time rendering of the 3D environment. This 5-inch Smartphone that comes with Android and includes APIs necessary to raise issues to written in Java or C / C + + applications.

In addition, the Unity engine is also part so that game developers have a known environment. Of course, the programming interfaces provided are still being developed and are far from being finalized. For now, the team in charge of the project indicates that 200 prototypes have already been produced. It also wants developers to take hold of it and begin to develop individual applications or games, or even algorithms that leverage. The first shipments are scheduled for 14 March.