Analyzed: Project Tango

"The future is awesome. We can build it faster together." That's the tag line from the latest venture from the geniuses at Google; Project Tango. Leave it up to them to come up with real world applications of something that we used to see in Sci-Fi TV shows or movies back in the day.

Project Tango is a focused exploration of what might be possible in a mobile platform. It is not part of Android today (even though it is being built on Android). It is still in its infancy and the technology begins the transition out of research labs into the hands of millions of people.  The goal of Project Tango is to give mobile devices a human-scale understanding of space and motion. 

The 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.

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? What if the visually-impaired could navigate unassisted in unfamiliar indoor places? What if you could search for a product and see where the exact shelf is located in a super-store? These are the questions Project Tango is trying to answer. While no actual application has been determined yet, it is only a matter of time before the boffins at Google (or the other institutions that are partnering in this initiative) figure it out!

To learn more about Project Tango, visit their website or view the video below:

Source: Project Tango

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Driverless cars. Coming soon to a road near you.

You got that right. The Driverless Car is a project by Google that involves developing technology for autonomous cars. The Nevada Department of Motor Vehicles issued the first license for a self-driven car in May 2012. The license was issued to a Toyota Prius modified with Google's experimental driverless technology. The system combines information gathered from Google Street View with artificial intelligence software that combines input from video cameras inside the car, a LIDAR (light detection and ranging similar in many ways to RADAR) sensor on top of the vehicle, radar sensors on the front of the vehicle and a position sensor attached to one of the rear wheels that helps locate the car's position on the map.

Testing has been in progress for the past couple of years and Google expects that the increased accuracy of its automated driving system (it learns as it goes) could help reduce the number of traffic-related injuries and deaths, while using energy and space on roadways more efficiently. The project team has equipped a test fleet of at least eight vehicles, consisting of six Toyota Prius, an Audi TT, and a Lexus RX450h. Not a bad start. Unfortunately there are no immediate plans to commercially develop the system probably owing to law enforcement and insurance headaches, but all things considered, if Google gets the right amount of lobbying around it, this can become a reality fairly soon. At least in the US. The rest of the world may have to wait for a very very long time.

We can think of so many utilities of driverless cars. But we wonder how it would fare against the cabs and metro buses in New York city! Below is a video with Sebastian Thrun (Project Head) where he discusses the thought and technology behind the driverless car.

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Project Glass: One step closer to augmented reality

Almost every sci-fi film (past or present) has the concept of augmented reality. You see what you see and there is an overlay of information on top of what you see. To this effect, the researchers at Google X have brought us Project Glass, an augmented reality head mounted display. The intended purpose of Project Glass products is the hands free displaying of information currently available to most smartphone users, and allowing for interaction with the Internet via natural language voice commands, similar to the iPhone's Siri. The software powering the glasses will be Google's Android operating system. 

Project Glass demo resembles a pair of normal eyeglasses where the lens is replaced by a heads-up display. In the future, designs may allow integration of the display into people's normal eyewear. The product has began real world testing in April 2012. Reports are floating around that the glasses would be available to the public for "around the cost of current smartphones", about $250 to $600, by the end of 2012, but other reports have stated that the glasses are not expected to be available for purchase soon. Considering the possible utilities of said device, it could be a while before it hits the market.

One utility for Project Glass we thought of was DIY tasks. Imagine viewing a video or instructions while trying to fix, say your car... wouldn't that be something? Hopefully we aren't too far away from that reality! See Google's video on Project Glass below.

What would you use Project Glass for? Let us know in the comments. You can also follow Project Glass on their Google + page.

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Google + Redesigned. Who said simple was a bad thing?

Google got into the social networking game a little later than most (this doesn't include their teething issues with Buzz/Wave etc.). But that hasn't stopped them from pouring their immense resources and talent into a product, let's face it, that didn't catch on as quickly as, say, the other giant, Facebook. But they have been trudging on and have just launched a redesigned version of Google Plus. And we must say, we absolutely love it. 

The design has been simplified if you will, all posts are in the form of conversations (much like in Gmail). All your menu options are persistent on the left as a sidebar and you don't have to spend time trying to find an option anymore. The other thing that you will notice is that each post is BIG. Photos you post are BIG. Videos you post are BIG. Not that it is a bad thing, but they are definitely bam! in your face. Google has also placed greater emphasis on its Hangout feature and you can start a hangout off any post. This we think is one of the coolest features of the redesign. Oh and we didn't see a single ad. How's that?

We took the liberty of including Google's video on all the changes that have been introduced. You can take a look at it below:

Hopefully these changes will mean a greater shift of users to Google Plus. Who said simple was a bad thing?

If you haven't checked out Google Plus yet, you really should.

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