
$500 Lenovo Phab2 Pro Is the First Google Tango Phone - stanzheng
https://www.engadget.com/2016/06/09/lenovo-phab2-project-tango/
======
npunt
Oy. This is how not to launch new tech - they're announcing hardware without
any use cases to explain to consumers why it's valuable. This is a symptom of
the lack of coordination between electronics manufacturers and the Android
team, which unfortunately doesn't seem to be righting itself after all this
time.

I love 3d mapping tech, and am eagerly awaiting it in devices. This tech could
have been integrated into Google Maps, one of the most popular apps on mobile
devices, but instead is launched with this weird message of hope that maybe
one day it could be used for useful things potentially, you know, if
developers come up with some ideas for that or something. This is Microsoft
all over again.

Techies of course can speculate and hope and fill in some possible use cases,
and it'll maybe move a few units for a short while as a lot of gimmick tech
does, but to the general market this is one big 'huh?'

Use cases, folks. Use cases.

~~~
AndrewKemendo
Well, for what it's worth we are actually doing the best use case of this (AR
home furnishings design) with inside out 6DOF markerless tracking on iPhone
and iPad without needing the Tango system.

Monocular visual odometry is becoming good enough that depth cameras aren't
worth the overhead. Samsung even asked me about a year ago if it was worth
doing and I told them no.

~~~
digi_owl
Can your system make out where the walls and other objects are in the room in
real time, and thus make sure virtual objects do not overlap?

One striking demo of Tango, back when they unveiled their dev platform tablet,
was that you could use the tablet to "throw" virtual balls into a random waste
basket put on top of a chair. Everything computed in real time based on what
the sensors picked up about the world around it.

So if you want to measure up your apartment, all you basically have to do is
take a Tango device for a walk around it.

~~~
AndrewKemendo
You are basically asking about a few different things - though they are
related.

 _Can your system make out where the walls and other objects are in the room
in real time,_

The first thing is plane detection and tracking. The answer is somewhat. We
can detect and track some planes, but it's not yet up to par with native depth
sensing systems in ideal environments. It performs better in high sunlight
environments however.

 _thus make sure virtual objects do not overlap?_

This is called occlusion. The short answer is, no right now our system doesn't
do occlusion. To do that right, you have to build a high probability real time
polygon mesh which we aren't building into a live product yet.

 _So if you want to measure up your apartment, all you basically have to do is
take a Tango device for a walk around it._

There is more than one way to do this. We can do this, but it's not real time
- it takes a few minutes. However it's getting faster very quickly and this
use case is in the pipeline.

~~~
tlarkworthy
Dedicated sensor hardware blows away laborious fancy math to overcome the
limitations of a sensor. Look at the adoption of the Kinect and LIDAR in
robotics hardware. No-one is seriously using monocular vision for any kind of
serious environmental sensing. Stereo vision + pattern is pretty much the
minimum to get satisfactory results.

~~~
AndrewKemendo
_Dedicated sensor hardware blows away laborious fancy math to overcome the
limitations of a sensor._

This doesn't work at consumer scale.

 _No-one is seriously using monocular vision for any kind of serious
environmental sensing_

That's why we're different.

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e40
Honest question: given the nature of this device (communication), is anyone
else nervous about Lenovo, given their recent shenanigans? (One only needs to
google "lenovo privacy concerns" to see what I mean.)

~~~
secfirstmd
Yep, wouldn't touch them with a bargepole

~~~
alfiedotwtf
Came here to make the exact same statement.

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danjayh
Non-engadget link for those who have given up on them (I can't possibly be the
only one):

[http://bgr.com/2016/06/09/lenovo-phab2-pro-release-date-
pric...](http://bgr.com/2016/06/09/lenovo-phab2-pro-release-date-price/)

~~~
techthroway443
For the uninitiated? What did they do now?

~~~
danjayh
What finally made me drop them was when they posted a cartoon of a dude with
his pants around his ankles using a fleshlight (or similar) to their front
page. IT pros might (legitimately) be reading Engadget at work, and they
basically put a giant cartoon porn picture on their front page. The article
itself was about the author's personal experience trying a few modern
masturbation devices. Seemed inappropriate for the market they're in. Left
permanently.

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Someone1234
This article demonstrates better what this could be used for:

[http://techcrunch.com/2014/02/21/heres-an-
actual-3d-indoor-m...](http://techcrunch.com/2014/02/21/heres-an-
actual-3d-indoor-map-of-a-room-captured-with-googles-project-tango-phone/)

~~~
asenna
That's the 3D model that Google created in partnership with Matterport (Early
2014). However, I am not sure why Matterport has not been mentioned in any of
the recent Lenovo Tango products. Neither have they mentioned this specific 3D
indoor scanning feature with this phone.

I was curious to find out the quality of the 3D model this phone could scan.

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tmd83
What I found more interesting is that 652 looks a very nice chip and its
priced at $500, 1440p, 64G with all the tagno stuff for a specialized product.

Why can't we have a $300-$350 phone with snapdragon 652, 1080p from most
manufacturer even Lenovo? I guess they have this ZUK 2 now in the similar
price/performance but a sub brand.

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ChuckMcM
This will be interesting when paired with a 3D printer. The tango technology
does a really good job of scanning objects and if you export them to a slicer
it should be possible to print them. That said, it could also make for a
really interesting data "theft" system, being able to derive detailed models
from something in a display case for example.
[http://boingboing.net/2016/02/23/scanning-artists-de-loot-
st...](http://boingboing.net/2016/02/23/scanning-artists-de-loot-stole.html)

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alwaysdoit
I don't understand why Tango has to be an integrated built-in solution rather
than an accessory that could be added to any Android phone.

~~~
dragonwriter
> I don't understand why Tango has to be an integrated built-in solution
> rather than an accessory that could be added to any Android phone.

Because hardware accessories still require standardized hardware to work with
(or complex adaptors, etc.), and are more cumbersome, which limits their
appeal. Tango requires specialized hardware, and it makes a lot more sense to
integrate it than to make it an accessory.

~~~
blacksmith_tb
Fair, though Flir[0] and Seek[1] both offer thermal cameras as accessories;
conversely, there's the Caterpillar S60 phone with built-in (Flir) thermal
camera[2]. But the accessory approach does mean more compatibility headaches,
no doubt.

0: [http://www.flir.com/flirone/ios-android/](http://www.flir.com/flirone/ios-
android/) 1:
[http://www.thermal.com/products/compactxr](http://www.thermal.com/products/compactxr)
2: [http://gizmodo.com/caterpillars-new-s60-is-the-first-
smartph...](http://gizmodo.com/caterpillars-new-s60-is-the-first-smartphone-
with-flir-1759685817)

