The Tribune

A LENOVO smartphone unveiled last week will be clever enough to grasp your physical surroundings, such as the room’s size and the presence of other people, and potentially transform how we interact with e-commerce, education and gaming.

The new Phab2 Pro phone will use software and sensors to track motions and map building interiors, including the location of doors and windows. That is a crucial step in the promising new frontier in “augmented reality”, or the digital projection of lifelike images and data into a real-life environment.

If Google’s Project Tango fulfils its promise, furniture shoppers will be able use the Phab2 Pro to download digital models of couches, chairs and coffee tables to see how they would look in their actual living rooms.

Kids studying the Mesozoic Era would be able to place a virtual Tyrannosaurus or Velociraptor in their home or classroom - and even take selfies with one. The technology would even know when to display information about an artist or a scene depicted in a painting as you stroll through a museum.

Tango, a three-year project, will be able to create internal maps of homes and offices on the fly. Google will not need to build a mapping database ahead of time, as it does with existing services like Google Maps and Street View.

Lenovo says the Phab2 Pro will sell for $500 when it begins shipping in the US in August. The device is expected to be available throughout the world by mid-September, in advance of Apple’s anticipated release of the iPhone 7.

Lenovo also previewed the newest models in its Moto line - the Moto Z and Moto Z Force - which will let people snap on additional equipment called “Mods” to the back of the phones. The initial Mods include a speaker to amplify music, a projector for displaying photos and video from the phone and a power pack that provides 22 hours of additional battery. The phones will be available exclusively in the US through Verizon this summer before a global release in the fall.