Lenovo Stuns With PHAB2 Pro And Moto Z

Lenovo has just finished stunning the world at its developer conference, Lenovo Tech World at San Francisco. Presenting were Lenovo's Chairman and CEO, Yuanqing Yang and several Lenovo executives and partners, and actor Ashton Kutcher, brand ambassador and ideator for Lenovo.

Of the array of technologies talked of at the show, the PHAB2 Pro was the most interesting, the first phone coming from Google's Project Tango -- now just called Tango. Tango is Google'[s augmented reality technology now coming out of the lab and closer than ever to being usable by the consumer, beginning with the PHAB2 Pro Android phone.

The PHAB2 Pro has a Phab2 Pro has a massive 6.4-inch, 2560x1440 display and Qualcomm Snapdragon 652 processor. It is capable of rendering augmented reality in real time thanks to its specs and and the rear cameras (it has four in all) and a other special technology built into it. It also has a lot of additional sensors, which is one reason why it's bigger than the ordinary phone.

It is with the PHAB2 Pro that AR or augmented reality is going to meet real life and become useful on an everyday basis. To enable the AR experience, Lenovo is using motion tracking, depth perception and area learning. The phone must be able to accurately sense where it is and know where physical objects are, what they are, and what they measure.

With the AR in place, the PHAB2 Pro will be able to create never-before experiences. From the demonstrations, this is very much about indoor navigation and the possibilities of how it can be put to use are endless.

For example, the phone can be pointed at a cabinet, a click will mark one edge, and the user will pan to the other edge and click again. A virtual line is drawn which then provides the exact measurement of the object, in this case the width of a cabinet. This has implications for any work inside a building that needs measurements -- the phone and AR and of course measure in any direction including from the floor to the ceiling.

The AR will also be able to help people navigate indoors, potentially very useful for the visually impaired though this was not demonstrated.

Gaming too will be more immersive and objects can be manipulated in the gaming environment in entirely new ways.The AR gaming experiences let you play virtual dominos on your kitchen table, raise a digital pet in your bedroom and fight back swarms of aliens invading your house.

The same technology can also be used for educational purposes as the rendering of objects and interacting with them including to get information, is in real time. To use another example, using AR apps, students can place true-to-scale virtual dinosaurs in their classrooms and enhance their learning through AR data overlays that appear while they walk around the creatures.

Augmented Reality meets the real world so seamlessly with this device and its Tango technology Lenovo believes that it can even begin to change the way people think about mapping indoor spaces to create new experiences like future augmented reality museum tours via the GuidiGO app for example.

Homeowners can also now use their PHAB2 Pro to remodel their homes by visualizing real home furnishings in their living rooms and kitchens. Home improvement company Lowe's is one of the first partners to develop a Tango-enabled application, Lowe's Vision. The app empowers customers by leveraging Tango technology to measure spaces and visualize how products like appliances and décor, or materials like countertops or backsplash tile will all look and fit together in a room.

Moreover, with Tango, the PHAB2 Pro will continually learn and improve.

"Put simply, we wanted to take what was an amazing concept and transform it into a commercially viable mobile device," said Jeff Meredith, vice president and general manager of Android and Chrome Computing, Lenovo. "From the moment we saw Tango, we knew it could become pervasive, just like GPS. However, to truly make the PHAB2 Pro a game-changer, we developed it at an affordable price for mainstream consumers, delivering not just a bleeding-edge phone, but an all-around fantastic phone that's first to market."

"Tango enables our devices to sense physical motion and space and, as a result, has the power to change how we interact with our surroundings. We believe that devices with positional tracking functionality will be pervasive and are happy that the PHAB2 Pro will introduce these new capabilities, making your phone even more useful," said Johnny Lee, Engineering Director at Google.

The Tech Behind Tango

Three core technologies bring Tango experiences to life: motion tracking, depth perception and area learning. Through motion tracking, the PHAB2 Pro's "eye" sees its own location in 3D. Area learning tells the smartphone its location. Depth perception lets the device analyze the shape of the world around it by detecting surfaces and obstacles. And now for the first time ever, your smartphone can visualize and understand its surrounding objects and environment via sensors that capture more than 250,000 measurements a second.

The Specs

While Tango makes the PHAB2 Pro unique, the device has some solid specs. It is powered by the Qualcomm® Snapdragon 652 processor, 4G LTE connectivity, and time stamping and camera and sensor processing capabilities.

Demanding computer vision processing is performed by the single, integrated Snapdragon processor with an integrated suite of key modules including a DSP, ISP and integrated sensor hub. The PHAB2 Pro features Dolby AudioTM Capture 5.1 with Dolby Atmos playback capabilities to help capture life's moments on video with great quality audio. With Dolby Audio Capture 5.1, you can use 5.1-channel surround sound to record and share the full panorama of your life, adding amazing richness, clarity and depth to your special moments.

Making this possible are three microphones, spatial capture with noise reduction, along with an onboard 16mp camera that supports crisp video recording. Also, when you watch Dolby Atmos content over headphones, you'll feel like you're in the middle of the action on screen with immersive, moving audio. The 6.4-inch PHAB2 Pro boasts an intelligent Assertive Display with a pin-sharp QHD (2,560 x 1,440) resolution, capable of optimizing image quality based on ambient lighting and content.