About three years ago, Google announced Project Tango. It’s essentially their augmented reality technology that they are planning to use for a number of things, but more importantly they want to get this technology into the hands of consumers. At Google I/O this week, the company showcased a few new experiments for Project Tango, showing everyone how far they’ve come since last year. At Google I/O last year, the demo they were showing was using Tango as a nerf gun to shoot at things in real life. This year, one of the demos was an app that allowed you to put a dinosaur in the middle of the room. Using a button, you could make the dinosaur much larger in the middle of the real-life environment in the background.
Another demo was an improved measurement app, which now recognizes edges. This is a pretty useful app or experiment because it can be used to measure the dimensions of windows, tables, and many other objects. This would make it easier to measure how long a new piece of furniture is before you bring it into your home. On that note, there was also an app that you could use to select furniture and have it placed right next to you. Allowing you to see if that new couch or table would be a good fit in the room. The final demo was an app that would make flowers sprout in the middle of the floor.
It was also announced at the Project Tango session that Lenovo is going to formally showcase their Project Tango smartphone at their event on June 9th. This was noted on the invitation to the Lenovo Tech Week event, but it was nice to get confirmation from Google as well. Lenovo showcased this Project Tango phone, sort of, at CES in Las Vegas back in January. There wasn’t much known about it, and the press wasn’t even allowed to take pictures of the device at the event. Lenovo stated in January that they plan to have it available before the end of the year. Of course, no pricing was announced then, but we may get that information in a few weeks.