Google Maps mapped the world outside. Now the company wants expand your horizons indoors. Let’s time to tango, with Google Tango!
Photo Credits: PAGE 2. LEAD_1
Google is at it again, innovating and creating something that can blow your mind. Google Maps was a revelation. That little blue dot that shows you where you are, moves with you and takes you to your destination…that was all awesome. So what does Google do next? They decide to map your indoor world. Crazy? Yes. Impossible? No. Nothing ever is with Google it seems. Tango is for everything underneath rooftops: hallways, offices, stores and -- perhaps more importantly for Google's advertising ambitions -- the stuff inside those rooms, like furniture and products on shelves.
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How does Tango work?
In many ways, Tango takes many of the core abilities that already exist in smartphones and greatly enhances them. Tango enables a mobile device to not only map indoor spaces -- figure out where the floors, walls, ceilings and furniture are -- but to also know the location of the device within that space and its orientation.
The sensors in your smartphone can already detect orientation based on movement. Beacons can track indoor location -- roughly. Your phone can tell how far away it is from a beacon in a known location.
Tango upgrades that ability. It can see the door and the stairs and the flower pot and figure out where it is inside a building.
So if you were to "mark" a spot inside a room inside an app to be found by someone else, the next person could not only identify the general area but the exact spot. If a store's app wanted to provide product information for items on the shelf, it could provide it for the product directly in front of you.
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Potential?
A Tango-enabled smartphone or tablet can replace a tape measure. You could measure the size of a TV screen by tapping on one corner, tapping on the far diagonal corner, then getting the screen size. Or you could measure the size of anyone -- or any thing.
It makes possible the blending of mixed reality and virtual reality via the lower-cost Google Cardboard type of VR headsets. Imagine a VR game where the castle walls or forest trees were actually located where your home's walls and furniture are. So walking around virtual objects means you walk around actual objects.
You could check out how furniture would look in your actual home before buying it. Or you could get an estimate of your home's square footage without actually measuring it. You could also imagine a photo app that uses Tango's depth perception and distance measurement to simulate shallow depth of field while taking pictures.
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When will we see it?
Chinese device maker Lenovo unveiled the first consumer smartphone infused with Google's Tango technology. The phone, called the Phab 2 Pro, will have a 6.4-inch screen and be available by September. Jeff Meredith, the head of Lenovo's mobile business group, said devices with both smaller and bigger screens are coming.
