Google is moving its Project Tango 3D imaging technology onto tablets, the Wall Street Journal reports.
From next month the company will produce a limited run of approximately 4,000 prototype 7in tablets, according to the newspaper’s sources.
The tablets will have two rear cameras, infrared depth sensors, and “advanced software that can capture precise three-dimensional images of objects”, it is claimed.
Sadly, most people won’t be able to get their hands on the hardware this time round as it will be targeted at developers, the Journal said.
The WSJ’s sources added that the device may be handed to developers ahead of Google’s I/O conference in June, mirroring the way Google Glass was first distributed.
The world first caught a glimpse of Project Tango in February when the company debuted an early prototype of a smartphone running the technology.
Google claimed the handset was capable of capturing more than 250,000 3D measurements per second in order to model the environment it is moving through.
“The goal of Project Tango is to give mobile devices a human-scale understanding of space and motion,” said researcher Johnny Lee at the time.
Possible applications suggested by Lee included interior mapping so that people would “never get lost in a new building again” or “directions to a new location that didn’t stop at the street address”, as well as possible entertainment opportunities, such as playing hide and seek with a virtual character or playing war games in a real space with a friend.
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