Project Tango prototype tablet
Google is working with LG to put a Project Tango tablet into shops some time in 2015.
It was announced yesterday at Google I/O that Google had started "early engagement" with LG to help build and release a Project Tango device for consumers.
Google recently released a powerful developer-orientated 7-inch tablet prototype to join the initial smartphone model, which launched alongside Project Tango back in February. However, this news of an LG partnership is the first solid sign of a commercial end product.
Project Tango is the work of Google's Advanced Technology and Projects lab. It uses a variety of advanced camera and motion sensing technologies to inform a mobile device of its precise location and orientation in the environment, as well as to grant unprecedented awareness of its surroundings.
These sensors are so sophisticated that they can create full 3D maps of the immediate environment.
What's more, Project Tango doesn't require GPS, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, or any of the other crude and unreliable means of location discovery that current mobile devices rely on.
The potential applications for this technology are vast and varied. At one end of the scale, a smartphone with Project Tango's spatial awareness could assist a visually impaired user to navigate their surroundings.
At the other end of the scale, it would bring a whole new level of depth and precision to augmented reality and motion-controlled gaming.
LG has partnered with Google in the past on such devices as the Nexus 5 and, more recently, the LG G Watch, which is the first ever Android Wear smartwatch. However, this could be the most ambitious project to come from the partnership yet.
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Via: Forbes