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Project Tango is your personal museum guide of the future (pictures)

With Project Tango's spacial and location awareness technology, the end of fold-out maps, clunky button pressing, and getting lost at museums may be near.

Lynn La
Lynn La covers mobile reviews and news. She previously wrote for The Sacramento Bee, Macworld and The Global Post.
Lynn La
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1 of 9 Lynn La/CNET

Taking advantage of Mobile World Congress' location here in Barcelona, Google and Lenovo teamed up to offer a demo of Project Tango, a spacial and location recognition platform, at the National Art Museum of Catalonia.

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Knowing exactly where it is at all times

Project Tango is essentially a mapping, spatial and location awareness platform that can be used to display information in relation to where you are. It can be tailored to specific buildings, such as malls and museums.

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Interacting with other users

The software presents information in an augmented reality fashion. Here, boxes float above the location where other Project Tango users are. The bigger the box, the closer the person is.

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Never get lost in a museum again

Project Tango can locate where it is relative to a building. With this pre-programmed map (developed by GuidiGO for the Catalonia Museum), it can lead you on a specific tour in real time, letting you stop at places of interest. With this level of accuracy, it can also help the visually impaired make their way through a building.

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Paving the way in real-time

Using its location and depth-sensing technology, it can even project a walking route to lead you around halls and corners. Here, a blue dotted line "appears" on the floor, and continues along as it leads you to specific painting.

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You have reached your destination

Here, Project Tango has finished leading a user to a painting. At this point, you can tap through the application to learn more information about the art.

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In case the museum placards won't do

Information can include biographical details of the artist, a brief summary of the painting, and tips of what to look for in the painting.

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From your living room to the moon

Other applications and scenarios for Project Tango include measuring the layout of your room for virtual redesigning, guiding hikers through a national park or NASA robots on the moon, and playing interactive games with the space around you.

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Available by the summer

Google and Lenovo plan to make a Project Tango-enabled phone by the summer, and sell it for less than $500. Be sure to check out more of CNET's coverage of MWC 2016.

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