Project Tango Tango is Google’s main project on realtime environmental mapping. The idea of the project is that Tango senses depth and maps the user’s environment in realtime. The kit might be easily used as a self-contained positional tracking system, considering the ability to function without any external camera watching the user. As iFixit mentioned, the tablet version of Project Tango, that Google has been developing, is using 3 cameras: the first – a 120 degree front-facing camera, the second – 4MP RGB-IR rear-facing camera, and a third 170 degree motion tracking camera. However, it has only recently found its way into the magic hands of vetted developers. As it has been announced, 4 days ago, Google moved the project from the Advanced Technology and Projects (ATAP) group, where it has been developed, so far, into its new home within Google itself. As the past experiences have showed, this is clearly a sign that the company is considering putting some serious work into developing the project.
Some of Google’s new sensor-assisted virtual reality technology will be therefore presented at this year’s Game Developers Conference, that is programmed to take place in San Francisco. The encounter promises to “enable Holodeck-like experiences with less than $100 add-on cost” to all kinds of mobile devices. Surely,the mapping dev kit of Project Tango will be one of the subjects to be discussesd there.
As the schedule shows, Google’s Chief Game Designer, will present the technology inSan Francisco. The announced session promises to deliver “an improved, inexpensive, less-disorienting kind of virtual reality that incorporates any surrounding real-world elements at will.” Surprisingly enough, this sounds more like an ‘augmented virtual reality’ – meaning a good combination between AR and VR. Perhaps the experience will be like the one enabled with Leap Motion. This might just indicate Google’s intention of integrating technology with some kind of “inexpensive head mounts” like Google Cardboard.
Realtime Environmental Mapping
Project Tango’s tablet dev kit has been on Playstore since last June, like a teaser – no price tag showing. However, the tablet, might cost somewhat over $1,000 USD – quite a big price, for the current tablet dev kit. We are looking forward to Google’s demo session of ‘Transmogrified Reality‘, and the revolution that is to come.
