[HH] more sensors coming to future Android phones

[Tom Metro]

New sensors potentially showing up in future Android phones could
facilitate things like better augmented reality, and capturing 3D
measurements of indoor spaces.
 -Tom


http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9246499/Google_phone_project_could_transform_smartphones?taxonomyId=75

Google phone project could transform smartphones

Part of what Google is calling Project Tango, the phone has special
sensors and chips that enable it to map indoor spaces.

The initiative is comparable to Google's Glass Explorer program... the
aim is to leverage the creativity of some developers to define what
might be possible with the Tango system.

...Project Tango phones have built-in gyroscopes and compasses, so the
phone knows which direction it's pointing in and how its orientation is
changed when you move it around.

In addition, Tango phones have sensors that have been compared to those
in Microsoft's Kinect gaming product. In fact, the project is headed by
a former Kinect team leader. On the back, the phone has a four-megapixel
camera, a depth sensor and a dedicated motion-tracking camera. The
sensors can tell where the floor and ceiling are, where the walls and
doors are, and where objects are located inside a room.

This information is combined with the phone's orientation sensor data to
enable the phone to not only create a 3D map of an indoor space, but
also pinpoint its location within that space.

One of the astonishing feats of Tango, according to Google, is that it
can take "a quarter million 3D measurements every single second,"
according to a video posted on the Google Tango site.

The phone uses something called the Myriad 1 vision processor platform
from Silicon Valley-based Movidius. The chip is a kind of co-processor
for processing vision data that used to cost a fortune and consume
massive battery power -- far too powerful for a mobile device. But a new
generation makes it possible to build the Myriad 1 into a phone.
...

Project Tango
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=Qe10ExwzCqk