Judging by the title of this blog, you may be mistaken for thinking this is going to be about a game or possibly some kind of cloak and dagger conspiracy theory, you would be wrong though.
Project Tango is a development kit produced by Google that is all about giving the device it is installed on an awareness of its surroundings and is currently available on a tablet from Google that can be purchased here.
From what I understand, when it is finally realised, as long as your device has Motion tracking, ambient light and 3D depth sensors then the magic should be able to happen.
The implications of this are mind-blowing; the device you hold in your hand will be aware of its surroundings. Now obviously we are not talking about AI as such here but this is definitely a start and many programmers have already jumped on this artificial bandwagon. All the device needs is light to function…
If the above info seems a little confusing then perhaps an example will help:
- Using this technology, say you have five people in a room using VR headsets, all of the people will be able to see the other people in VR including their position in the room. This is not that impressive if you are talking about a pre-coded VR environment but that’s just it; this is all done over wifi and nothing more. Combine this with in home robotics and you could be seeing a very interesting future.
- Say you want to buy a new couch for that newly decorated room. This software would enable you to literally view the sofa in situ without buying it first, perfect in every proportion. Your camera view of the room would show it in place.
The possibilities of this technology are endless and I am very excited to see where this goes!