Project Ara: Google’s new Modular Phone

Wired reports on Project Ara (http://www.projectara.com/) and calls it “Google’s attempt to reinvent the cellphone as we know it”.

Instead of a slab of glass and metal that you have no ability to upgrade, save for buying a new device, this one’s an attempt to launch a phone where the components are interchangeable modules that click in and out, attaching magnetically. Despite being highly customizable, the phone will only come in three main sizes, to help eliminate the kind of device fragmentation that currently plagues Android.

ara-taken-apart

Every part of this new phone is exchangeable

See in Wired: Google’s New Modular Phone May Be the Last You’ll Need to Buy

The modular phone previously was a Motorola initiative called Phonebloks. Google acquired it when it bought Motorola some time ago.

Having a widely used standard for the basic device could inspire a whole revolution, not only in phones. All kinds of sensors and gadgets could be combined using the phone merely as a skeleton to start building. Star Trek’s Tricorders come to mind. Business Insider’s report on the phone points to that possibility in these words:

More than a smartphone

But the basic framework and modular nature of Ara could be used to build any number of devices, far beyond a simple smartphone and wouldn’t require a mobile phone radio or Wi-Fi module, for instance.

“‘What is a phone’ can be challenged when you can pick and choose pieces on our platform,” explained David Fishman, an Ara team manager. “It would still be able to run an operating system and do what you’d want to do without a connection.”

“If it can be other things, we encourage that,” said Eremenko but added that Google intends Ara to be “ultimately a great smartphone first and foremost” allowing “developers to explore different branches” of technology.

See Google Is Releasing Their $50 Modular Phone In January 2015

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