A Night at the Museum With Project Tango

BARCELONA—I've been to Barcelona three times. I've seen the Sagrada Familia , Park Guell , and modernist compages galore. But today was the first fourth dimension I went to the Museu Nacional d'Art de Catalunya , and it's easily one of most scenic sites I've seen. Only I wasn't there to look at the stunning structure itself or the paintings that hang on its walls. I was in that location to look at tiny blue dots on a tablet screen telling me where to go. I was in that location to see Project Tango in action.

MWC Bug Art Projection Tango can exist hard to explain, merely in essence, information technology's a relatively new technology platform from Google that lets you use a mobile device to detect where yous are without using GPS. Information technology uses 3D motion tracking and depth sensing to allow your device know exactly where information technology is and how it moves in relation to the world around information technology. It's sort of like hyper-local GPS with some augmented reality thrown in for proficient measure. Then what was it doing at the museum?

Google , along with Lenovo, GuidiGo , and Glympse , were showing off the potential of Tango by demonstrating how it can exist used to give a guided tour through ane of Barcelona'southward most famous museums. GuidiGo was used to map the museum, and Glympse helps you locate your friends inside.

And so how did it piece of work, exactly? We were broken into small groups, since correct now Tango has a tendency to get confused when too many people are in the room. The GuidiGo app was loaded on Lenovo'southward Tango development kit tablet, and our tour guide pointed its camera around the room for a few seconds to get things properly mapped out. One time that was done, it generated the floor program you see above.

What's cool well-nigh this is that, one time the map is generated, you tin can hands discover your style anywhere in the museum just by choosing it on your screen. Want to encounter a specific piece of art? Select it from the app, and you'll be given a view of the room y'all're in through your telephone'south screen. Point the photographic camera toward the flooring, and blue dots appear in real-fourth dimension over the moving-picture show to show yous exactly the path you demand to take. It's similar indoor GPS for Picasso.

Nosotros used the app to follow the trail to our outset painting, and the app displayed a marker on screen when we arrived. But it doesn't stop in that location. Property the screen upwards to the painting will of a sudden reveal a number of circles hovering over information technology in different areas. Tap one to see information data about the artwork itself, like you can meet beneath.

And if y'all go separated from your friends, y'all tin can utilise Glympse to look around the museum through the screen of your device and locate whatever companions who are as well running the app. They announced with a big cartoonish icon, and yous can merely bespeak your device in their management and start walking until yous find them.

The engineering science certainly isn't perfect. Similar I said before, too many people in the room can brand it difficult for the camera to lock on, and the blue direction trail dropped out a couple of times over a 10-minute exam menstruum. Still, what I find impressive is that Google didn't have to map out the museum for this to work. Instead, GuidiGo used Tango to get in, thanks to the 180-degree camera on the development tablet. And a spokesperson from Google said that once this technology is available on a wider level, mapping information can be crowdsourced to create far more than detailed maps.

While I went into this demo wondering what Tango had to do with such a cute museum, it all made sense by the time is was over. When Project Tango is bachelor to the masses—something Lenovo plans to make happen this summer with consumer-set devices—this is exactly what people will want to use information technology for. Instead of having to deal with those chintzy, dingy audio guides, how cool would it exist to simply bring your phone to a museum and automatically tailor a tour to your liking?

Of form, information technology'south like shooting fish in a barrel to see possibilities outside of the fine art realm likewise. Desire to find a certain pair of shoes in the mall? I'thou sure Adidas volition be happy to directly you straight to its sold out brandish of Yeezy Boosts. Of form, the spread of Tango will likely depend on consumer adoption, so it'll be interesting to see how this all plays out.

But for a brief demo in a beautiful museum, Project Tango certainly managed to print. Or maybe information technology was all the wonderful art. Then once again, I was mostly looking through a screen at the footing.

This article originally appeared on PCMag.com.

About Alex Colon

Alex Colon

Alex Colon is the managing editor of PCMag's consumer electronics team, overseeing coverage of cameras, cars, drones, headphones, health and fitness products, phones, smart dwelling devices, speakers, tablets, wearables, and pretty much everything else that doesn't come with a keyboard and mouse.