Project Tango Smartphone was released by Google and Qualcomm This Year

Qualcomm has announced it's helping Google stuff its Project Tango tech into a smaller form factor - specifically a smartphone set to be released in the third quarter of 2015.

Project Tango is focused on augmented reality (digital graphics placed on top of the real world) and virtual reality (entirely digital worlds). Up until now, it's only been available through an Nvidia tablet.

Like the tablet, the smartphone will be aimed at developers rather than the general public - this isn't really ready for consumer use yet, though anyone in the US can buy a dev kit if they want to.

3D space

A Project Tango device needs to know exactly where it is and where it's pointing in 3D space, much more so than a regular mobile, so getting this kind of technology into a smartphone is no mean feat.

Qualcomm says the upcoming smartphone is going to be powered by the Snapdragon 810 and the Adreno 430 GPU, the same kind of setup found in many of this year's flagships.

"We're excited to work together with Google and Android developers to help deliver new, innovative visual experiences using depth-sensing technology on mobile devices," said Qualcomm's Raj Talluri as the device was announced at Google IO.