Google Announces Project Tango Tablet Development Kit

Google has released the Project Tango Tablet Development Kit which was created in collaboration with NVIDIA. The development kit includes the new Tegra K1 mobile processor to create a platform designed for computer vision and 3D sensing. Developer can use the Project Tango Tablet Development Kit to make applications that track full 3-dimensional motion and capture surfaces in the environment.

The goal of Project Tango is to give mobile devices a human-scale understanding of space and motion. Google has been working with universities, research labs, and industrial partners spanning nine countries around the world to build on the last decade of research in robotics and computer vision, concentrating that technology into a unique mobile device. Google is putting early prototypes into the hands of developers that can imagine the possibilities and help bring those ideas into reality.

Project Tango devices contain 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 device 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.

These devices run Android and include development APIs to provide position, orientation, and depth data to standard Android applications written in Java, C/C++, as well as the Unity Game Engine. These early prototypes, algorithms, and APIs are still in active development. These are experimental devices are not a final shipping product.

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?

The development kit is powered by the new NVIDIA Tegra K1 processor packed with 4GB of RAM, 128GB of storage, motion tracking camera, integrated depth sensing, WiFi, BTLE, and 4G LTE (availability will depend on region and carrier).

These development kits are designed for professional developers interested in exploring the future of mobile 3D sensing. Developers will receive updates as the software algorithms and APIs evolve. These development kits are not a consumer device and will be available in limited quantities.

Developers can sign up now to purchase the device for $1,024 and if selected for the limited quantity release, should be able to receive the device at a later date.

To learn more click here.