We know that anything and everything 3D has been booming over the last year. 3D printers have become a part of everyday life and 3D mapping has become the standard in various fields.
So it was only a matter of time before we saw a collaboration of two of the biggest pieces of tech n the world today; 3D technology and a smartphone. And of course, this is exactly what Google is working on.
Yesterday, Google launched it‘s latest project – Project Tango. Project Tango is an experimental smartphone equipped with high-tech, 3D sensors.
The 5-inch phone will (obviously) be Android powered and deliver users with the unique ability to measure the world around them in 3D.
The phone is said to be able to take more than 250 000 measurements each second. Now let your mind wrap around that for a while – it‘s a lot of measuring resulting in a lot of detail.
But why would anyone want 3D mapping technology built into their smartphone? Well, why not? Google said that the idea with Project Tango is to give your smartphone an “˜idea‘ of real time, human space:
“The goal of Project Tango is to give mobile devices a human-scale understanding of space and motion,” according to Johnny Lee, technical lead at Google‘s Advanced Technology and Projects (ATAP) group, of which Project Tango is a part.
According to Google and the ATAP team, these 3D sensors can be used in a number of different applications. Everything from gaming to indoor navigation.
You can just imagine how cool it would be to get a 3D map of your house, and then use it as a backdrop to build a game. Or get a 3D render of any building and integrate it into game development.

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Project Tango can also assist visually impaired people, by providing them with auditory queues on where they are going, as the tech maps out the person‘s environment.
While the project is still in it‘s early stages of development, Google has a big vision for Project Tango and want‘s to involve specialist developers from all around the world in coming up with the finished product.
The first prototypes of the phone will be made available only to a select group of developers that are hand-picked by Google and the ATAP team themselves.
Companies focused on data processing, gaming and of course navigation and mapping will be the front runners in the race to get their hands on one of the (only 200) available prototypes.
Project Tango is also expected to be one of the main focuses at Google‘s I/O Developer Conference in June.
Developers who are interested in Project Tango (and I‘m sure there are a lot) can sign up to Project Tango‘s website in a bid to receive one of the coveted prototypes.
While Project Tango might be flying under the radar for now, we‘re guessing that it will, just like other 3D technologies, explode within in the next year. And that makes us excited.
Check out ATAP’s introductory video to Project Tango below:

Source: Mashable