It’s all about virtual reality these days. But that isn’t the only technology that’s moving forward and showing us what our present and future worlds can be. There’s also augmented reality, which How Stuff Works describes as adding “graphics, sounds, haptic feedback, and smell to the natural world as it exists.” As its name suggests, it augments the real world.
Google wanted to place this technology into some of the most powerful devices we have today—our smartphones and tablets. And they were developing this idea with the initiative they called Project Tango (and now just called Tango). Earlier this year, they announced at CES 2016 that they were working with Lenovo to unveil a consumer smartphone that ran Tango’s technology. Roughly six months later, we see the fruit of that partnership in the Phab 2 Pro.
This phablet, with its 6.4-inch Quad HD display, is dubbed by the company the world’s first augmented reality-enabled device. It packs in some serious specs with a Qualcomm Snapdragon 652 processor (Tango Edition), making it optimized for Tango apps; 4GB of RAM; 64GB internal storage; Dolby Atmos audio with 5.1 audio capture, three mics with 360-degree voice and noise-canceling technology; fingerprint scanner; aluminum unibody; and a 4,050mAh battery with turbo charging capability.
What’s important, though, is that setup at the rear. The array lets you map out the spaces around you so it can add on an augmented reality interface you can see from the screen. It can have both fun and whimsical as well as useful and educational applications. Some of the apps already available for the Phab 2 Pro allow you to virtually place furniture into a space, which will come in handy when moving or buying new furniture and play virtual dominoes, first-person shooters set in the virtual or real world as well as take care of a virtual dog. Other more practical applications in the future could help in mapping out surgeries in real time and learning about parts of a new vehicle. And you don’t need any special glasses or accessories to use these, all you need is the gigantic device’s screen. The tech allows you to even measure distances between objects.
According to Lenovo and Google, there will be 25 Tango apps available when the device launches and 100 apps by the end of the year. It’ll be launching in the U.S. during their summer and retail for US$499 (around P23,000). We’re hoping this phablet will make its way to our side of the world.
[…] There are currently 25 Tango-enabled apps on the Play Store, which you can check out by installing this app. And if you want to read our full feature on the Phab 2 Pro, you can read that here. […]