Google and Lenovo promises for smarter phones with Project Tango

Google and Lenovo in collaboration announced their first consumer-targeted product with Project Tango technology at the ongoing CES 2016 conference. This Smartphone would be launched under the price tag of $500.

Image credits: g.co/ProjectTango and Lenovo.com

One of the coolest and most innovative feature of this phone is the indoor area mapping which is possible with the 3D machine vision technology. Three vertically stacked lenses in the Smartphone camera will deliver color and depth information and a fisheye lens is supposed to give a wide-angle peripheral vision around the device. All the data gathered by the camera are then compiled by the Lenovo Smartphone's processor and then build a 3D map of the area. The technology will enable near real-time mapping along with the measurements showing precision down to the centimeter.

The Lenovo-made Project Tango-based handset will run on Android OS having a display size of lesser than 6.5-inches. Developers get a reason to rejoice as they can submit their Project Tango application ideas to Google until February 15 and selected developers will get funding for their idea and their apps will be preloaded on the Lenovo Smartphone. Google will be shipping the Smartphone to the selected developers based on their app ideas.

It would  help consumers find their way in a large hotel or mall or take precise measurements of a room before shopping for furnishings.Demonstration of the product included measuring of ceiling height, square footage and then testing how certain furniture would look in the room.

Project Tango is an imaging technology solution that uses a combination of various sensors to view the environment around you and generate spatial awareness for your phone. Using a number of different sensors on your phone or tablet, it creates a sophisticated picture of the world around it.

An infrared emitter and infrared camera act as a range-finder to measure the distance between a phone and various objects allowing them to be mapped in three dimensions. A wide angle camera adds details about the location, and other phone sensors including accelerometers, gyroscopes, and barometers combine to help Tango calculate not just objects in vicinity of your phone or tablet, but also the angle at which you are looking at an object, how far away it is, and what it looks like.

Now this is something amazing however no official dates have been given as to when it will be released in the market. But this collaboration is surely has something new to offer being a Lenovo mobile user i often had faced various shortcomings myself ,and to be frank i still feel a kind of reluctance but since Google is a notable brand it will surely take care of the technicalities.


Article by Prerna Sharma
A Computer Science Graduate by brain and a writer by heart. 
Prerna gels up technology and creativity to blog about what she loves.
She can be reached at twitter.com/prernas83606199