# Google Project Tango



## editor (Feb 21, 2014)

Here's a fascinating Google experiment:





> Project Tango is an exploration into giving mobile devices a human-scale understanding of space and motion.
> 
> What if you never found yourself lost in a new building again? What if directions to a new location didn't stop at the street address? Imagine playing hide-and-seek in your house with your favorite game character. Imagine competing against a friend for control over physical space with your own miniature army.
> 
> We hope you will take this journey with us. We believe it will be one worth traveling. To find out more, and apply for a development kit visit http://g.co/ProjectTango.


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## DrRingDing (Feb 21, 2014)

I wonder what evil this will be used for.


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## skyscraper101 (Feb 21, 2014)

What I would really like, is for something like this to be implemented on street view cars so you would get proper 3-D mapping which would then allow for a really smooth virtual navigation. It would be amazing to drive a virtual road trip without the staggered loading screens from image to image.


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## RedDragon (Feb 21, 2014)

Why, oh why can't Google adopt  Apple's*  "and it ships today" approach when it comes to product announcements. 

I guess we'll have to wait to be Tangoed.








*The World's Richest Tech Company™


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## Johnny Canuck3 (Feb 21, 2014)

Another incredible new Google thing!  Who knew?


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## ChrisD (Feb 21, 2014)

so having photographed the world they now plan to make it into a 3D model...

Street view has been really useful for me so if 3D models are available too then that's handy. I don't understand the economics of this and have been expecting a paywall to appear.

I can see the folk who didn't want the street view camera's down their private roads being a bit pissed off when the 3D mapping drones fly over!


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## editor (Feb 21, 2014)

Johnny Canuck3 said:


> Another incredible new Google thing!  Who knew?


Well, clearly no one until they made the announcement. If you're not interested in this kind of cutting edge technology, maybe you should just leave these threads to people that are?


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## pesh (Feb 21, 2014)

basically they want to street map the inside of our homes and offices?


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## joustmaster (Feb 21, 2014)

Cool. But its a lot of extra hardware to add to a phone for mass roll out. That could take a while


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## Ax^ (Feb 21, 2014)

someone got a happy whilst watching the dark knight clearly..


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## editor (Feb 21, 2014)

joustmaster said:


> Cool. But its a lot of extra hardware to add to a phone for mass roll out. That could take a while


It's never going to be mass rollout. It's experimental tech.


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## editor (Feb 21, 2014)

pesh said:


> basically they want to street map the inside of our homes and offices?


Might be an idea to read the article again, no? Just to keep the hysteria levels down.


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## UnderAnOpenSky (Feb 21, 2014)

Does this mean that we'll be able to play first person shooter in our own neighbourhoods?


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## Ax^ (Feb 21, 2014)

only if you live in florida


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## pesh (Feb 21, 2014)

editor said:


> Might be an idea to read the article again, no? Just to keep the hysteria levels down.


where am i being hysterical here?

anyhow



> Our current prototype is a 5” phone containing customized hardware and software designed to track the full 3D motion of the device, while simultaneously creating a map of the environment. These sensors allow the phone to make over a quarter million 3D measurements every second, updating its position and orientation in real-time, combining that data into a single 3D model of the space around you.



sorry, i should have said they want to 3D map the insides of our homes and offices.


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## Pickman's model (Feb 21, 2014)

ChrisD said:


> so having photographed the world they now plan to make it into a 3D model...
> 
> Street view has been really useful for me so if 3D models are available too then that's handy. I don't understand the economics of this and have been expecting a paywall to appear.
> 
> I can see the folk who didn't want the street view camera's down their private roads being a bit pissed up when the 3D mapping drones fly over!


pissed up?


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## editor (Feb 21, 2014)

pesh said:


> where am i being hysterical here?
> 
> anyhow
> 
> ...


So, _no mention whatsoever_ of them "wanting to *street map* the inside of our homes and offices," like you said.


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## souljacker (Feb 21, 2014)

Is that website rendering like utter shit for everyone or is my browser being shit? The text seems to repeat itself loads too.


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## joustmaster (Feb 21, 2014)

editor said:


> It's never going to be mass rollout. It's experimental tech.


sure. at the moment. 
i remember a compass being experimental.
and if they can add a thermometer and a barometer, then one day a couple of image sensors could be standard. They seem to want to do as much as they can to make a phone stand out (with high end mobiles)


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## souljacker (Feb 21, 2014)

Now I'm getting a 404?!?!?


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## pesh (Feb 21, 2014)

editor said:


> So, _no mention whatsoever_ of them "wanting to *street map* the inside of our homes and offices," like you said.





> What if you could capture the dimensions of your home simply by walking around with your phone before you went furniture shopping? What if directions to a new location didn’t stop at the street address? What if you never again found yourself lost in a new building?



certainly sounds like thats what they want to do.


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## editor (Feb 21, 2014)

pesh said:


> certainly sounds like thats what they want to do.


Where does it say that it intends to publish scans of your own home onto Street View for all to see?


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## pesh (Feb 21, 2014)

where did i say they would publish it?

i imagine they will publish everything they can, public spaces and so on, hence the 'What if directions to a new location didn’t stop at the street address? What if you never again found yourself lost in a new building' bit

as for people homes, i imagine they wouldn't be publishing that, just keeping the data for their own uses.


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## editor (Feb 21, 2014)

pesh said:


> where did i say they would publish it?


"basically they want to street map the inside of our homes and offices."


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## Corax (Feb 21, 2014)

joustmaster said:


> i remember a compass being experimental.


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## joustmaster (Feb 21, 2014)

Corax said:


>


a compass in a phone, i mean.
i'm not not some sort of two thousand year old Methuselah


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## ChrisD (Feb 21, 2014)

Street view mapping already goes into various museums, shops and places like exeter cathedral. Clearly only with owners permission.
Its normal practice now with topographic surveys to pick up important features of nearby buildings without needing to stray onto private land. If you can photograph it then you can measure it.
Combination of this technology + mini drones will soon get the world into a 3D model.  There are a couple of firms who currently sell 3D model info of major built up areas who will also be pissed off ((not pissed up)).


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## Johnny Canuck3 (Feb 21, 2014)

editor said:


> Well, clearly no one until they made the announcement. If you're not interested in this kind of cutting edge technology, maybe you should just leave these threads to people that are?



It seems there are a lot of announcements about Google. But I suppose that as Google becomes larger and larger, more and  more of the technology will be controlled by them, so, of necessity, the announcements will be about them.


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## elbows (Feb 21, 2014)

skyscraper101 said:


> What I would really like, is for something like this to be implemented on street view cars so you would get proper 3-D mapping which would then allow for a really smooth virtual navigation. It would be amazing to drive a virtual road trip without the staggered loading screens from image to image.



Maybe not 100% what you envisage but have a play with this:

http://hyperlapse.tllabs.io


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## weltweit (Feb 21, 2014)

They promised in the future there would be hoverboots!


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## Corax (Feb 21, 2014)

ChrisD said:


> Street view mapping already goes into various museums, shops and places like exeter cathedral. Clearly only with owners permission.
> Its normal practice now with topographic surveys to pick up important features of nearby buildings without needing to stray onto private land. If you can photograph it then you can measure it.
> Combination of this technology + mini drones will soon get the world into a 3D model.  There are a couple of firms who currently sell 3D model info of major built up areas who will also be pissed off ((not pissed up)).


Sports stadia too - you can take a stroll round Camp Nou and stuff. 

There's also a project to streetmap shopping precincts and similar, which could be genuinely useful - especially for people with nervousness in places like that, and the elderly, and so on.


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## Corax (Feb 21, 2014)

Having got home and switched to Nexus from phone, I've just watched the video. 

Out of all of it, the thing I find most exciting is the possibilities for disability assistance. If someone can develop an intuitive and useable way in which it could essentially act as a personal sonar for someone without sight for instance, I'd assume that could be incredibly liberating


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## editor (Feb 21, 2014)

Corax said:


> Out of all of it, the thing I find most exciting is the possibilities for disability assistance. If someone can develop an intuitive and useable way in which it could essentially act as a personal sonar for someone without sight for instance, I'd assume that could be incredibly liberating


Yep - that was specifically mentioned by Google. There's real potential there.


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## Corax (Feb 21, 2014)

editor said:


> Yep - that was specifically mentioned by Google. There's real potential there.


Aye - it was that brief section of the video that caught my imagination. I'd like to see them expand on it tbh. 

They're putting it out there to developers then, to build upon the platform. Which is all well and good, but will that likely result in disability assistance developments? I kind of assume it's not the most lucrative area (hence the discontinuation of the quite brilliant iBot wheelchair) - so will we just get a load of games and lifestyle/productivity apps, rather than exploring what could be its most valuable use? 

I know that there's a trickle down type effect from entertainment development - but there's usually a big time lag in that. 

Or will they be pushing development for socially valuable uses with some sort of extra incentive or programme?


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## rich! (Feb 21, 2014)

I'm guessing this is a tech demo of "you can put a depth sensing camera chip in the phone. please do", partly intended to provide an alternative to Kinect, and partly to open up mapping algorithms. Nice.

Given Google's awful track record on privacy, *of course* it will be Streetmapping everything. When that's discovered, there will be an "oh, whoops, debugging mode left on, sorry" announcement, and eventually Germany will arrest various Google execs and hold them until Google turn on sane privacy settings again.


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## elbows (Feb 21, 2014)

Corax said:


> Aye - it was that brief section of the video that caught my imagination. I'd like to see them expand on it tbh.
> 
> They're putting it out there to developers then, to build upon the platform. Which is all well and good, but will that likely result in disability assistance developments? I kind of assume it's not the most lucrative area (hence the discontinuation of the quite brilliant iBot wheelchair) - so will we just get a load of games and lifestyle/productivity apps, rather than exploring what could be its most valuable use?
> 
> ...



Well you are far more likely to see it emerge quickly and without the explicit support & resources of google if it can be done by software developers alone. If the future hardware from google & partners covers everything necessary to use it for disability assistance and someone just has to knock up an app, I think thats more likely than if significant dosh upfront has to be found for hardware development, production & distribution. Sure the niche software business shares some of the same downsides as the niche hardware business, but its easier to take a punt on something on a shoestring budget if you are just dealing with software. Niche hardware also tends to suffer a high selling price which further shrinks the potential customer base, and those getting into that sort of business who are driven more by a passion for the thing they've invented than realistic prospects to make the numbers add up often can't sustain things for long, once the initial sales reality hits home. Those looking at things in a colder economic light probably want to set themselves up with contracts to supply stuff in bulk to large service providers, before investing significant sums in such hardware development.

All of which makes me glad that we live in an era where mass-produced hardware can be turned to niche applications via software, one of the more attractive and beneficial aspects of general purpose computing and its more recent mobile & connected flavours.


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## editor (Feb 24, 2014)

Bloody hell. The technology is incredible.



> Watch an exclusive look at a real 3D indoor map of a room captured with one of the prototype devices by Matterport. Matterport, which makes computer vision and perceptual computing solutions like software that maps and creates 3D reconstructions of indoor spaces, was one of the few partners Google chose to give an early prototype of the device to. Note: no sound.


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## sim667 (Feb 28, 2014)

It looks like what predator sees.


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## editor (Dec 28, 2015)

Video piece in the Guardian: 
Project Tango: Google's glimpse into the future – video



> Google’s Project Tango is the closest we’ve come to a “build it, and they will come” attitude in tech. It takes everything that is already revolutionary about the progression of smartphones as tiny hubs for every sensor imaginable, and doubles it. The goal is no less than letting a phone or tablet have an understanding of what the real world is actually like, as accurately as you or I.
> 
> At the heart of that intention is a panoply of sensors studding the outside of the prototype devices. As well as everything you would expect from a smartphone – a camera on the back and front, and a gyroscope and accelerometer – the Project Tango devices have extra input. Accompanying the rear camera is an infrared emitter, constantly emitting an invisible grid across the world, and an infrared camera, picking up the reflections the grid makes.
> 
> If that sounds familiar it’s because it’s similar in principle to how Microsoft’s Kinect system works. But rather than being pointed at you, it’s pointed at the wider room. That’s matched with super accurate versions of internal sensors common in other phones, such as the accelerometer, gyroscope and barometer (which measures air pressure, but can also be used to determine altitude), to provide the phone with everything it needs to build up a super accurate map of the world and its location within it.



Project Tango: Google is building it, but will they come?


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## gosub (Dec 28, 2015)

DrRingDing said:


> I wonder what evil this will be used for.


once the joker is caught, morgan freeman will enter his name and it self destructs


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