Google Project Tango smartphones heading to space this week

BYEdgar Alvarez @abcdedgar5 hours ago

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Google is no stranger to having some of its devices up in space, what with the Nexus S and One each taking on different missions in years past. Up next: Project Tango. The search giant's smartphone, which packs 3D sensors that allow it to track and map just about anything around it, has been playing a role in NASA's Synchronized Position Hold, Engage, Reorient, Experimental Satellite program, otherwise known as SPHERES. As Reuters notes, these spherical satellites could one day "take over daily chores for astronauts or even handle risky duties outside of the vessel." Accordingly, on July 11th, NASA and Google are doing good on the promise to launch Project Tango smartphones into orbit, where they be will be used as "the brains and eyes" of the bowling ball-sized, hovering robots at the International Space Station.

SPHERES Project manager, Chris Provencher, told Reuters they had been looking to add better processing power, cameras as well as a slew of sensors to the robots, and smartphones were the way to go. "This type of capability is exactly what we need for a robot that's going to do tasks anywhere inside the space station," he said about Tango possessing the right attributes to meet the program's needs. "We wanted to add communication, a camera, increase the processing capability, accelerometers and other sensors. As we were scratching our heads thinking about what to do, we realized the answer was in our hands [smartphones]."

[SPHERES image credit: NASA]

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Via: VentureBeat

Source: Reuters

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Project Tango teardown reveals the wonders of the phone's 3D sensing tech

Want to get a better understanding of Google's 3D-sensing Project Tango smartphone beyond the usual promo videos? iFixit is more than happy to show you now that it has torn down the device for itself. The close-up identifies many of the depth mapping components in the experimental handset, including the infrared and fisheye cameras (both made by OmniVision), motion tracking (from InvenSense) and dual vision processors (from Movidius).

However, the real centerpiece is the infrared projector. As you can see from the pretty light show pictured here, Project Tango maps the environment in much the same way as the original Kinect: it's creating a grid of dots that it measures to calculate distance. Other parts are relatively pedestrian, such as the Snapdragon 800 processor and 5-inch display, but it's clear from the teardown that they play second fiddle here -- this is an imaging device that just happens to double as a phone. You can see this for yourself at the source link. 0 Comments Share

Source: iFixit

Tags: atap, depthcamera, depthsensor, google, ifixit, infrared, invensense, mobilepostcross, movidius, omnivision, projecttango, smartphone, tango, teardown Next: Mt. Gox faces liquidation as recovery plans scrapped .fyre .fyre-comment-divider

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