{"id":341268,"date":"2017-05-18T03:28:35","date_gmt":"2017-05-17T19:28:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/techcrunch.com\/?p=1492632"},"modified":"2017-05-18T03:28:35","modified_gmt":"2017-05-17T19:28:35","slug":"google-has-an-indoor-positioning-tech-in-the-works-called-vps","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/asmawisham\/google-has-an-indoor-positioning-tech-in-the-works-called-vps\/","title":{"rendered":"Google has an indoor positioning tech in the works, called VPS"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/p>\n

Google has announced it\u2019s\u00a0working on a service to\u00a0offer detailed\u00a0indoor location positioning\u00a0using its Tango<\/a> 3D sensing computer vision tech.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne thing we\u2019ve seen clearly is that AR is most powerful when it\u2019s\u00a0tightly coupled to the real world, and the more precisely the better,\u201d said Clay Bavor, speaking at Google\u2019s I\/O conference today. \u201cThat\u2019s why we\u2019ve been working with the Google Maps team on a service that can give devices access to\u00a0very precise location information indoors.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bavor described the feature\u00a0as \u201ckind of like GPS\u201d but instead of talking to satellites \u2014 which isn\u2019t necessarily viable given indoor reception issues \u2014 the cameras on a Tango device triangulate position based on \u201cdistinct visual features in the environment\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe think it\u2019s going to be incredibly useful in a whole bunch of places,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Google\u2019s name for the tech is \u201cvisual positioning service\u201d \u2014 or VPS.<\/p>\n

Bavor gave the example of a large DIY store where a shopper is trying to find\u00a0a particular item. \u201cImagine in the future your phone could just take you to that exact screwdriver and point it out to you on the shelf,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

He\u00a0did not give a specific timeframe for a launch \u2014 saying only that the tech is \u201cworking today\u201d.<\/p>\n

He also showed\u00a0a video demo of the system which\u00a0uses a\u00a0series of visual feature points to navigate indoors, and determines where it is by comparing new points with previously observed ones so \u201cthe phone can figure out exactly where it is in space \u2014 down to a few centimeters\u201d.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s unclear how well it would fair in interior environments without too many distinct visual features to latch\u00a0on to, however.<\/p>\n

\u201cGPS can get you to the door. And then VPS can get you to the exact item that you\u2019re looking for,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

The demo drew a round of applause from the I\/O crowd.<\/p>\n

Google released a dev kit for its Tango tech back in 2015, and the first consumer device was launched last year (made by Lenovo). A second gen Tango device is due to launch this summer, noted\u00a0Bavor, flagging up how devices are getting smaller. \u201cYou can imagine far more devices having this capability in the future,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

He also hinted at another potential future use-case for the location positioning tech \u2014 assisting people with visual impairment.<\/p>\n

\u201cFurther out, imagine what this technology could mean to people with impaired vision. VPS in an audio-based interface could transform how they make their way through the world.\u201d<\/p>\n

VPS will be\u00a0\u201ccritical\u201d for camera-based interfaces, he added \u2014 noting that it will be a core component of Google Lens<\/a>, the intelligent camera tech Google\u00a0also announced today.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\"\" Google has announced it’s working on a service to offer detailed indoor location positioning using its Tango 3D sensing computer vision tech. Read More<\/a><\/p>\n

\n<\/img><\/a> <\/img><\/a> <\/img><\/a> <\/img><\/a> <\/img><\/a> <\/img><\/a>\n<\/div>\n

\"\"\/ <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5817,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[25],"tags":[59,66,26],"class_list":["post-341268","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-technology","tag-media","tag-techcrunch","tag-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/asmawisham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/341268","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/asmawisham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/asmawisham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/asmawisham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5817"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/asmawisham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=341268"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/asmawisham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/341268\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/asmawisham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=341268"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/asmawisham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=341268"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/asmawisham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=341268"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}