With the rise of Microsoft Kinect, tech giants have been paying more attention to technologies that can detect objects and gestures within a 3D environment. Samsung , for example, outfitted its Samsung Galaxy S4 with sensors that can track eye movement, thereby controlling scrolling through Web pages or pausing videos when looking away from the screen. Apple, too, is looking into 3D motion-sensing technology with last year’s $345 million acquisition of PrimeSense, a company that helped develop the original Microsoft Kinect.
And now, Google is forging headlong into 3D virtual environments with its newly announced Project Tango.
Courtesy of Google’s Advanced Technology and Projects (ATAP) hardware group, Project Tango aims to equip a five-inch smartphone with advanced sensors that can not only detect motion but also the three-dimensional makeup of one’s surroundings. But unlike the presumed direction in which Apple is taking its acquired PrimeSense technologies, Google’s plan isn’t to create a gesture-based interface but rather to further 3D-sensing and vision technology and all the limitless possibilities that lie therein.
Full story at Minyanville.
