The tablet is a development kit that sells for a steep price

Nov 14, 2014 09:05 GMT  ·  By

Back in June, Google announced its Project Tango Tablet developer kit bundle, set to sell for $1024 / €750 a pop.

The search giant promised the tablet would start selling by the end of the year and now Project Tango has showed up in the Google Play store, showing us that Google means business.

Project Tango Tablet dev kit will be up for grabs soon

However, you can’t pick one just yet, but its appearance there indicates the availability of the tablet is not far from us.

Both white and black models are listed in the shop, but Google says that “the device is not for sale at this time” so take a good look at it and breathe it in.

Google’s Project Tango is among the few tablets that take advantage of the Tegra K1 processor platform, following the Xiaomi MiPad, NVIDIA Shield Tablet and Nexus 9.

The chip under the hood works in concert with 4GB of RAM and 128GB of internal storage. It bundles a 7-inch display, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 4.0 Low Energy and some models will even be able to take advantage of 4G/LTE connectivity.

But what sets the tablet apart from the rest of them is the integrated cameras and sensor which help the device “sense” the world around it.

Developers are invited to purchase the development kit and start creating apps that could potentially allow users to change their environments, like changing how furniture is arranged around the house.

The dev tablet takes advantage of a front-facing camera with 120 degree viewing angle, a 4MP 2 μm pixel camera located on the back plus an additional motion-tracking cameras plus an embedded depth sensor.

The tablet doesn’t use a GPS, but relies on a family of 3D sensors, accelerometers and gyros in order to track the position of users in an enclosed space.

When the consumer friendly version of the tablet will be rolled out, you’ll probably be spared of paying around $1000 / €732, but Google does seem to have developed a taste for selling their dev products at premium prices.

To provide you with a telling example, developers enrolled with the Google Glass Explorer program had to spend $1500 / €1098 to get their hands on the highly controversial wearable.

LG will be the manufacturer to launch the first Project Tango Tablet

A few months ago, it was revealed that Google is working hand in hand with LG to bring Project Tango technology to its tablets, with a launch scheduled for early 2015.

So developers will have a couple of months at their disposal to come up with interesting, immersive 3D games and applications for the tablet

Project Tango Tablet (13 Images)

Project Tango Tablet shows up in Google Play
Project Tango logoProject Tango as it will look in real life
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