Google is well-known for working on highly exploratory products and services. From internet-carrying balloons to cars that drive themselves, and everything in between. One such innovation is Tango, developed by a team led by computer scientist Johnny Lee, a core contributor to Microsoft‘s Kinect, which is part of the same ATAP division that’s currently working on bringing us the first truly modular smartphone.
With the recent announcement from Lenovo that its first Tango-equipped phone is finally on the market, you’re probably curious as to exactly what it is.
To explain Tango in its most basic form: it’s giving devices the ability to see and understand their surroundings in a similar way to how we do. That means building a custom set of sensors and a processor that can connect the various sources of information, and understand it all.
There are three main parts to the Tango technology. First is the motion tracking technology. Using a motion tracking camera, 3D depth sensor, accelerometer, barometer, gyroscope and GPS, a Project Tango-compatible device can tell where it is, and how it’s moving within a specific space or area and which way it’s pointing.
When combined with the second and third features, depth perception and area learning, it can understand the space you’re moving with great accuracy. So if you’re holding it while walking through a narrow corridor and turn a corner, it remembers where you’ve come from and tracks where you’re going. It can even tell where the walls are, and how close you are to specific objects.
Perhaps more impressive within the depth perception is that it can tell whether an object is small and close, or far away and large. It calculates both distance between you and the object, the object’s size, and where it sits in relation to other items in the area
Together, these generate data about the device in “six degrees of freedom” (3 axes of orientation plus 3 axes of motion) and detailed three-dimensional information about the environment.
How To Use Tango
There are a couple of key uses for this kind of technology that Google has listed so far. For the average consumer, augmented realityis going to be one of the biggest draws for this technology. Because its sensors are so advanced, it can use the cameras to detect the surroundings, and then place virtual items in the scene in relation to the real life physical objects. So, you could see, virtually, how a desk or coffee table in a room to see how it would look, or more interactive gamified items.
There are a few games already developed for Project Tango, one of which is called Bullseye’s Playground which essentially builds an entirely virtual 3D world modelled on a building’s physical layout. Users can then interact with characters or throw snowballs and find various surprises on the way. Google partnered with Target in the States to offer an in-store experience to its walk-in customers using this app.
Project Tango will also let users measure objects accurately. You could measure a table, as an example, using augmented reality to draw a joining line between one end and the other. And, because of its motion tracking and area learning technology, you don’t have to hold the device completely still. It can recognize and measure an object regardless of how far away it is, or even if you move during measuring.
What’s more, because it can detect surfaces and knows and measure angles etc. it knows how, and what angle, to place the virtual objects. As a basic example, it knows how to orientate a virtual object to lie on a horizontal surface, like the floor, and it can place items on a vertical surface, like a wall or a chair leg. You can also move your device any which way because it remembers where those surfaces were and where you placed the virtual items.
Tango can also be used to accurately map indoor locations, potentially expanding Google Maps’ knowledge to reach inside buildings. So if you’re in a particularly huge shopping centre and it’s been mapped using Google’s Tango, you can easily find your way using your smartphone.
From a business and enterprise standpoint, Tango could be incredibly useful for estate agents, building surveyors, architects or interior designers who want a more visual way to measure buildings.
Supported Devices
As of right now, there are two devices available to buy with Tango support, and that’s the tablet development kit and the Lenovo Phab2 Pro smartphone. The tablet isn’t the most impressive device spec-wise, but it’s been made primarily so that developers can build apps and programs that make the most of the project’s capabilities.
With the Phab 2 Pro, which is now selling for $499, Lenovo and Google are trying to prove that AR can and should become an integral component of modern smartphones. Lee thinks of Tango’s technology much like GPS, which transformed the utility of mobile phones and, years later, helped give birth to services like Uber. If augmented reality is equally transformative in letting our devices understand physical spaces and “see” the world, it could help reshape entire industries, from gaming to retail to real estate.
Until there’s more devices out there with Tango tech, and that’s not happening until next year, at least, this all feels very much like an experimental test phase for AR. But developers don’t seem too discouraged. That’s both because Pokémon Go proved there’s an appetite for these type of mobile experiences, and Google is convinced it’s only a matter of time before every phone makes the jump to 3D mapping.
“This is something that is not going to go away,” says Legacy Games CEO Ariella Lehrer, whose company is making a kid-friendly zombie game called Crayola Color Blaster. “This ability to understand space is coming, and I think the market is going to be very large.”
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