Google to build biggest campus outside US in Hyderabad

Mobile cameras today can only capture what fits within the screen, which is what Project Tango hopes to change.

Google wants mobile devices to capture your environment in 3D, making a quarter million 3D measurements every second.

What this means is a visually challenged person can walk unhindered in a new building and you can avoid physical measurements and just walk around your house with your phone before you shop for furniture.

While Google has already released Project Tango tablet and phone prototypes to developers, consumers are expected to get a taste of the tablet this year.

Probably Google’s most famous project along with the Glass, the car could well be a reality on roads soon.

While Google had been testing its technology in regular cars, in May 2014 the company unveiled a prototype it had developed, with two seats, no steering wheel and a top speed of 40 km per hour.

Google co-founder Sergey Brin, who heads Google X, has said self-driving cars will be available for consumers by 2017.

Germany recently created laws for driverless cars. In the US, Washington DC, Nevada, Florida and California have regulations, too.

Google announced in January 2014 that it was developing a contact lens with a wireless chip and a tiny sensor to measure glucose levels in tears once a second.

The company is also working on putting LED on the lens, which will blink when the blood sugar level is high or low.

A few months after the announcement, pharma company Novartis joined hands with Google to develop products based on Google’s smart lens technology

As part of the project Google plans to collect anonymous genetic and molecular information of 175 people initially — and many more later — to find patterns or biomarkers in the information, which will help doctors detect diseases earlier.

The project is part of the growing life sciences division of Google X. In September last year, Google bought Lift Labs, which makes spoons and forks that make eating easier for people with tremors due to Parkinson’s Disease or other motion disorders.

Announced with much fanfare in 2012, Google Glass had an uneventful run before the sale of its test units to consumers was halted by the company last month.

A device that would not be out of place in a sci-fi movie, it helps the wearer make and answer calls, send messages, take pictures and videos, get directions and video-chat, among other basic functions.

The device’s exorbitant price ($1,500), limited apps, and privacy concerns generated a lukewarm response to it.

Google has said it plans to reboot the wearable computer, which has been moved out of Google X and into a mainstream products division, before bringing it to the market again.

In what could only be termed futuristic, Google is developing a fitness band-like bracelet which will help identify cancer cells when they first appear.

The wearer of the bracelet will have to take a pill which has nanoparticles which circulate in the body looking for cancer cells.

Once they find cancer cells, the particles attach to them and the cells light up.

The combo then makes it way underneath the bracelet which has a magnet that attracts nanoparticles. Google is also developing synthetic human skin for its tests.

One of Google’s most ambitious projects, Project Loon began with a pilot test in New Zealand’s South Island in June 2013.

The project aims to connect inhabitants of the world’s remote and rural areas to the internet through balloons.

Yes, you heard that right! Balloons are floated 20 km above the earth’s surface and they use telecom companies’ spectrum to provide connectivity using long-term evolution (LTE) technology.

Each balloon can provide connectivity to a ground area about 40 km in diameter.