Get your app featured on the first smartphone with Project Tango from Lenovo

Posted by Johnny Lee, Technical Project Lead, Project Tango

Today, at CES, Lenovo announced the development of the first consumer-ready smartphone with Project Tango. By adding a few extra sensors and some computer vision software, Project Tango transforms your smartphone into a magic lens that lets you place digital information on your physical world.

*Renderings only. Not the official Lenovo device.

To support the continued growth of the ecosystem, we’re also inviting developers from around the world to submit their ideas for gaming and utility apps created using Project Tango. We’ll pick the best ideas and provide funding and engineering support to help bring them to life, as part of the app incubator. Even better, the finished apps will be featured on Lenovo’s upcoming device. The submission period closes on February 15, 2016.

All you need to do is tell us about your idea and explain how Project Tango technologies will enable new experiences. Additionally, we’ll ask you to include the following materials:

• Project schedule including milestones for development –– we’ll reach out to the selected developers by March 15, 2016
• Visual mockups of your idea including concept art
• Smartphone app screenshots and videos, such as captured app footage
• Appropriate narrative including storyboards, etc.
• Breakdown of your team and its members
• One pager introducing your past app portfolio and your company profile

For some inspiration, Lowes Home Improvement teamed with developer Elementals Web to demonstrate a use case they are each working on for the launch. In the app, you can point your Project Tango-enabled smartphone at your kitchen to see where a new refrigerator or dishwasher might fit virtually.

Elsewhere, developer Schell Games let’s you play virtual Jenga on any surface with friends. But this time, there is no cleanup involved when the blocks topple over.

There are also some amazing featured apps for Project Tango on Google Play. You can pick up your own Project Tango Tablet Development Kit here to brainstorm new fun and immersive experiences that use the space around you. Apply now!

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Saving a life through technology Coffee with a Googler

Posted by Laurence Moroney, Developer Advocate

In this week’s Coffee with a Googler, we’re joined by Heidi Dohse from the Google Cloud team to talk about how she saved her own life through technology. At Google she works on the Cloud Platform team that supports our genomics work, and has a passion for the future of the delivery of health care.

When she was a child, Heidi Dohse had an erratic heartbeat, but, without knowing anything about it, she just ignored it. As a teen she became a competitive windsurfer and skier, and as part of a surgery on her knee between seasons, she had an EKG and discovered that her heart was beating irregularly at 270bpm.

She had an experimental surgery and was immediately given a pacemaker, and became a young heart patient, expecting not to live much longer. Years later, Heidi is now on her 7th pacemaker, but it doesn’t stop her from staying active as an athlete. She’s a competitive cyclist, often racing hundreds of miles, and climbing tens of thousands of feet as she races.

At the core of all this is her use of technology. She has carefully managed her health by collecting and analyzing the data from her pacemaker. The data goes beyond just heartbeat, and includes things such as the gyroscope, oxygen utilization, muscle stimulation and electrical impulses, she can pro-actively manage her health.

It’s the future of health care -- instead of seeing a doctor for an EKG every few months, with this technology and other wearables, one can constantly check their health data, and know ahead of time if there would be any health issues. One can proactively ensure their health, and pre-empt any health issues.

Learn more in the video.

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Retirement of certain Google search APIs

Posted by Vijay Subramani, Technical Program Manager, Google Cloud Platform

Back in 2011, we announced the deprecation of the following APIs: Google Patent Search API, Google News Search API, Google Blog Search API, Google Video Search API, Google Image Search API. We supported these APIs for a three year period (and beyond), but as all things come to an end, so has the deprecation window for these APIs.

We are now announcing the turndown of the above APIs. These APIs will cease operations on February 15, 2016.

You may wish to look at our Custom Search API as an alternative for these APIs.

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