One of the interesting tidbits that came out of CES 2016 this week was an announcement yesterday from Lenovo and Google around Project Tango. The companies announced that such a devices will be available sometime this summer, bringing what has been a somewhat quiet project for Google this past year to the market.
So what exactly is Project Tango? By Google’s definition it is…
Project Tango technology gives a mobile device the ability to navigate the physical world similar to how we do as humans
Now that’s a bit broad but essentially what it does is bring a whole new level of awareness to your device through various sensors. These sensors allow for the device to understand motion, depth perception and area learning so your device learns and becomes aware of its surrounding. The most obvious example of this would be a game being played in the physical work of your house with things like walls being walls and sofas being barriers as you play. But really, the potential of this technology is hard to grasp.
One of the best articles explaining Project Tango I have read is from Mike Elgan for a piece he wrote for Computer World. I highly recommend reading it to get a grasp of what it is and how it could impact so many facets of life.
As for the Lenovo Project Tango device, scarce little was mentioned on the specifications of the device. Clearly it will have a new set of sensors to take advantage of the Tango software/APIs but outside of that, not much is known. Lenovo did say it would be between 6″ and 6.5″ in screen size but as far as storage, RAM or core process, it wasn’t mentioned.
Equally, the launch in “Summer 2016” is also quite broad but I’ll keep watching for more details and will post as I get more information.
