An update on Augmented Reality in Project Tango -- Coffee with Justin Quimby Video Lecture | Coffee with a Googler - IT & Software

a couple of weeks ago on coffee with a
Googler we met with Justin Quimby and we
spoke about tango and all the cool
things that are happening with tango so
now we're in Mountain View were at the
tango summit and Justin's here so we're
going to go upstairs and catch up with
him we're here now at the tango summit
in Mountain View and Justin's back to
catch up with us and tell us what's not
even exciting well what's new and
exciting is we launched so the yeah
that's really exciting the Lenovo fab 2
Pro went on sale at the beginning of
November worldwide and we've already got
dozens of apps in the Play Store that
people are building and part of the
reason we're so thrilled about this
event this week is when last we chatted
I was talking about how this is the
beginning of the ecosystem for
smartphone augmented reality
applications and we're here to help some
folks spread the word about tango and
how to build great apps for the fab 2
Pro and other tango enabled smartphones
super cool yeah and one of the coolest
things is we're starting to see apps in
the Play Store that we didn't know about
one of the really exciting things about
this organic growth in the app ecosystem
is it means that people are getting
excited about it with us without us
simply saying hey hey hey hey build up
building that and which means that
people are seeing value in what tango
provides to the smartphone ecosystem I
mean we've got apps that I think I saw
you fail pretty badly at Jenga earlier I
thought you know supposed to knock the
tower yeah of course yes for you they're
totally supposed to knock it down
games are a natural place to use
augmented reality in a smartphone form
factor but it's not just about games
shopping is also another fantastic area
where people are starting to build apps
that take advantage of the tango stack
to really bring value and utility to
their users so I staging and Wayfarer
and Lowe's and Amazon and a bunch of
other folks are all building apps that
use the tango technology it's not just
about the app ecosystem and developers
getting excited about what's happening
with the hardware and the software we're
also starting to see larger and larger
organizations get excited about tango
technology now earlier this year we
actually had a hackathon in Shenzhen
China ah much means a chef said it's a
nice place it's a crazy town only a
crazy town the reason it was
particularly exciting is there are over
200 teams working on tango applications
and the prime minister of China held a
fab - Pro got a demo some of them so the
thing that's exciting about is we start
to see not just individuals and small
companies but bigger and bigger
companies and actually governments see
value in this technology this the
snowball has just started rolling down
the hill and part of the thing that I
love about events like this week is you
get to talk to folks who are gonna go
out and spread the word about tango and
get the developer community excited nice
and we can't wait we just cannot wait to
see what developers come up with with
this technology stack because we've
built this - the set of tools and there
are problems out there that we don't
even know about and we can't wait for
people to use this technology and new
interesting ways to do things that we
haven't even thought of
and speaking of snowballs I heard this
one app that like models the entire
solar system
oh yeah so shopping gaming and there's a
whole education one now we actually had
an incubator to help some developers
build apps and one of the apps that came
out of it it's just a fantastic
demonstration of how this kind of
technology can be used for educational
purposes now I don't know about you but
when I went through elementary school
and they had the classes on the solar
system and you're sort of sitting there
and they start talking about how many
hundreds of thousands of miles are
between Neptune and Pluto and no than
that yeah and is Pluto still the planet
or not no you know this app lets you
then place a digital model of the Sun
all the way to the outer planets and
then you see them at scale placed and it
really drives home how close Mercury
Venus Mars and Earth are to the Sun
compared to Neptune and Saturn and
Jupiter and also the vast quantities of
space between Jupiter and Saturn that
seeing that sort of kinesthetically
exploring that by walking around
as a whole different impact right as
opposed to just reading numbers on a
page or maybe looking at a picture and
so that's a sort of application where
there's this use case where I want to
see the path of X Y or Z spacecraft hey
maybe I want to be able to plot my own
spacecraft and it see what would it take
to actually get a spacecraft to then
orbit Jupiter and so suddenly as opposed
to writing code on a computer or drawing
out things suddenly I can start
navigating through space with this
device and this becomes a window into a
whole nother world and it unlocks all of
this potential and this is you know this
is one app right what happened if got
dozens already we already got does in
this and we expect to have hundreds very
soon and so for us this is where we
can't wait to see what the developer
community comes up with because a
diversity of authorship when it comes to
apps is so important we can't just have
apps made by folks here in San Francisco
or here in Mountain View we need maps
made worldwide mm-hmm and that for me is
part of the exciting thing about the
Lobo device being sold worldwide mm-hmm
because we've got developers in Shenzhen
Beijing Seoul Berlin Cairo all over the
planet developing apps for it and I
can't wait to see what they build I
don't have to ask Santa for one yes
that's a that's a good idea so now if
for developers all over the world now
the device is available what advice
would you give them what's the best way
to get started how can they get up and
running well so we've got a great site
at developers.google.com/live in the
comments below on this video right there
yeah right down there and we've got all
sorts of example applications so whether
you're a unity developer or unreal or
you actually are an Android developer
using Java or you just want to use the
tango API and see we've got sample code
as well documentation for each of those
paths and then we've also got on github
a whole bunch of example apps that you
can then form tweak play with whenever I
talk to developers the first thing I
recommend is all right take one of those
apps just get it running on a device
just and then pick a model pick any
model perhaps the Jenga piece
or a plan a model of Mars and then place
that digital object in the real world
mm-hmm once you got that up and running
you're off to the races right and then
you can explore all the advanced
capabilities that tango provides on top
of the Android stack cool so and that's
the other thing to think about is that
tango is a capability for this device
it's not just about motion tracking and
area learning and depth sensing we're
building on top of all the other
capabilities that Android devices have
today so notifications payment systems
as locations like all this stuff have
become possible yeah those are all
layered you can layer into your app so
really it's gonna start small and get
something start playing with and then
start thinking about the challenges that
you face think about the challenges of
your users face and how could this
technology knowing where this device is
at any given point in time as it and how
it moves through space how could you use
that to help solve your users problems
and delight and and surprise your users
mm-hmm one of our favorite apps is the
Domino's app where you just place
digital Domino's down on the bond board
and part of the thing that's fantastic
about that is suddenly it's not just
about these digital objects they're
Domino's but you can add additional
behavior on top of them okay and now
imagine you're playing a Jenga game but
one of the pieces is actually a bomb and
when you try to move it it actually
blows up part that's what happen at Mei
yes that was completely what happened to
you in that name of Jenga so suddenly
all of the behaviors all of these
digital objects can have lives of their
own that can have behaviors though that
make these apps even better and the neat
thing about Domino's is that if you do
it in the real world you're constrained
to the physical number of Domino's you
have if you're doing it in this you can
you can continually ad dominum exactly
or you can change gravity so that
sometimes they fall that way sometimes
they fall yeah there's another great
game which is a Hot Wheels track builder
game so you're placing digital track and
racing digital Hot Wheels cars around it
and I don't know about you but one of
our enough track there's never enough
and also you never managed to pick up
all of your Hot Wheels cars and so at
some point later you're walking around
your house and your bare feet and you
step on one and who does that hurt so
now suddenly you're no longer
constrained by the physical products you
have now you can start building with
these digital objects and building crazy
digital worlds they interact with your
real ones super cool so before we wrap
up there was one question that we had
from the viewer of the previous show and
that was that when you were talking
about all these things
he was envisioning the the the
holographic chess from Star Wars
remember that's yes are you working on
anything like that or what do you
thought so so digital objects like
holographic chess it's a fantastic idea
and we'd love to see you build it we've
actually had a couple of folks come to
us and say hey we want to build mm-hmm
this kind of app we're like well here's
the sample code and they're off to the
races so but just don't play it against
the wookie because I hear they pull your
arms out of this huh yeah yeah it's
always wise to let the wookie win okay
sounds good well thanks Justin Ames
great to see you again
great catching up looking forward to
playing with these devices looking
forward to seeing how these apps work
and I'm gonna start walking from the Sun
to Pluto and augmented reality and I
should get there by next Tuesday yes
perfect thanks so much thank you
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