Don’t bother checking you calendars, it isn’t April 1st. With that out of the way, Google is throwing everyone a curve ball today with the announcement of Project Tango, Google’s new in-house smartphone prototype outfitted with Kinect-like sensors.
The 5-inch smartphone as is being developed by Google’s Advanced Technology and Projects group (ATAP), and is headed by Johnny Lee — a man once apart of the Microsoft Kinect team (makes sense, right?). The goal of Project Tango is to ultimately give mobile devices a “human-scale understanding” of space and motion, allowing users to map the world around them in ways they never thought possible
The prototype uses many sensors already found in our smartphones today (gyroscope, cameras, etc.) with a few key differences: Project Tango is outfitted with a 4MP camera, motion tracking camera, and depth sensing sensor all working in conjunction with the unique motion and depth tracking “vision processor” from Movidus.
Practical applications involve indoor navigation, video games, or even assistance with the visually impaired. Really, the possibilities are endless.
Starting today, Google is making the prototype dev kits available to developers who are looking to make applications and/or algorithms atop this brand new platform. Google says they hope to have all units shipped out by March 14th, 2014, just a few short weeks away.
We expect to learn much more during this year’s Google I/O, kicking off in June. All we can say is… WOW.
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