Google has just pulled the curtain off Project Tango, the latest innovation to come to us from its Advanced Technology and Projects hardware group (the folks also involved with Project Ara). This device is capable of tracking its movement within an area while creating a 3D map of the environment at the same time. It could be immensely useful for indoor navigation or the creation of highly immersive video games.

This type of functionality isn't unprecedented, but it has typically required more juice than a smartphone could sustain for any given length of time. Thanks to Movidius' Myriad 1 vision processor, Google is able to pull this off without requiring a great deal of power. The prototype device, a 5-inch phone, is also equipped with special sensors capable of making over a couple hundred thousand measurements a second. Together, this is how the magic happens.

Google's looking for developers who are eager to take advantage of this new functionality. It currently has 200 dev kits available, and if your idea is particularly compelling, it may be willing to ship you one. Though, due to FCC restrictions, it's only providing them to incorporated entities or institutions at this time. Keep that in mind before hitting up the link below.

Source: Project Tango