Tango (platform)

Tango
Original author(s)Google
Developer(s)Google
Initial releaseJune 5, 2014; 10 years ago (2014-06-05)
PlatformAndroid
Available inEnglish
TypeComputer vision
Websitedevelopers.google.com/tango/

Tango (named Project Tango while in testing) was an augmented reality computing platform, developed and authored by the Advanced Technology and Projects (ATAP), a skunkworks division of Google. It used computer vision to enable mobile devices, such as smartphones and tablets, to detect their position relative to the world around them without using GPS or other external signals. This allowed application developers to create user experiences that include indoor navigation, 3D mapping, physical space measurement, environmental recognition, augmented reality, and windows into a virtual world.

The first product to emerge from ATAP,[1] Tango was developed by a team led by computer scientist Johnny Lee, a core contributor to Microsoft's Kinect. In an interview in June 2015, Lee said, "We're developing the hardware and software technologies to help everything and everyone understand precisely where they are, anywhere."[2]

Google produced two devices to demonstrate the Tango technology: the Peanut phone and the Yellowstone 7-inch tablet. More than 3,000 of these devices had been sold as of June 2015,[3] chiefly to researchers and software developers interested in building applications for the platform. In the summer of 2015, Qualcomm and Intel both announced that they were developing Tango reference devices as models for device manufacturers who use their mobile chipsets.[4][5]

At CES, in January 2016, Google announced a partnership with Lenovo to release a consumer smartphone during the summer of 2016 to feature Tango technology marketed at consumers, noting a less than $500 price-point and a small form factor below 6.5 inches. At the same time, both companies also announced an application incubator to get applications developed to be on the device on launch.

On 15 December 2017, Google announced that they would be ending support for Tango on March 1, 2018, in favor of ARCore.[6]

  1. ^ Announcement on ATAP Google+ site, 30 January 2015
  2. ^ "Future Phones Will Understand, See the World". 3 June 2015. Retrieved 4 November 2015.
  3. ^ "Slamdance: inside the weird virtual reality of Google's Project Tango". 29 May 2015.
  4. ^ Qualcomm Powers Next Generation Project Tango Development Platform, 2015-05-29
  5. ^ IDF 2015: Intel teams with Google to bring RealSense to Project Tango, 2015-08-18
  6. ^ "Google's Project Tango is shutting down because ARCore is already here". The Verge. Retrieved 2017-12-16.