PayPal Shares Sink as $50 Billion Takeover Bid Collapses 
HP Stock Drops 9% Despite Q3 Earnings Beat and Raised 2026 Outlook 
Nvidia Eyes Perplexity Investment at $30 Billion Valuation 
Countries Tighten Social Media Bans for Children 
SoftBank Plans Record $6.3 Billion Bond Sale to Fund OpenAI Investments 
Unitree Shares Plunge 45% After Blockbuster IPO, Raising China Tech Bubble Fears 
SoftBank Eyes $20 Billion Bond Sale to Refinance OpenAI Loan 
U.S. Disrupts China-Linked Hacking Campaign Targeting Government Agencies 
Meta Agrees to $18 Billion Settlement, Tightens Teen Social Media Rules 
New Zealand Moves to Ban Social Media for Children Under 16 
OpenAI Data Center Chief Chris Malone Exits Ahead of Planned 2027 Listing 
BofA Names ASML Top Semiconductor Equipment Pick on Growth, Valuation 
Google Changes EU Spam Policy Amid Antitrust Scrutiny 
SK Hynix Shares Fall as Workers Reject Wage Deal 
U.S. Probes Apex Logistics Over Nvidia AI Chip Shipments to China 
Nvidia Revenue Soars 106% as AI Demand Hits ‘Inflection Point’ 
Nvidia Reportedly Eyes $13 Billion Hugging Face Acquisition 
Add as a preferred source on Google
Augmented reality, along with virtual reality, is the next frontier of technological advancements for smartphones and the computer industry in general. Google’s Tango technology is one of the most promising innovations when it comes to AR, and it is now in Lenovo’s Phab 2 Pro smartphone.
Tango is basically an advanced camera with dimensional sensors, which enable it to measure distances and sizes of objects by simply looking at it. This makes it perfect for 3D-mapping, which is incredibly important in AR technology. It can help users do things like measure space for furniture or play an even more advanced version of Pokémon Go, CNET reports.
The great thing about the Phab 2 Pro is that it is not just a developer kit anymore, which can be quite basic in its features since it relies on developers to soup it up. It’s now a fully-functional, mid-grade product that also comes at a reasonable price of $499.
Since Lenovo’s phablet is the first real product to have the Tango onboard, it’s only natural that it would still have a few kinks in the system. The most noticeable of these is how shiny surfaces can throw off the 3D-mapping sensors, thus preventing AR objects from making an appearance.
Despite these flaws, however, it’s still a pretty solid offering that provides almost life-like features to digital objects placed over real objects. As for its likely effects on the smartphone industry, The Verge notes how the AR market has grown enough for Tango and the Phab 2 Pro to take hold.
The increasing interest around AR is largely thanks to the success of Niantic Labs’ Pokémon Go mobile app, which proved to be a worldwide phenomenon. This forced companies to realize that there is real money to be made in superimposing non-existent things on real things, such as super cute monsters.
Google is even thinking about applying Tango to other smartphones down the road. The Director of Product for Tango, Nikhil Chandhok says as much, confirming that next year will see many more manufacturers rocking the AR technology.
