Last October 2013, Google Motorola announced Project Ara, enabling customization of smart phones' hardware. Google continues with the project even though it has sold Motorola to Lenovo last month. Google kept Motorola's Advanced Technology and Projects (ATAP) group; and now under Google's flagship, former director of Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), Regina Dugan runs the project.
On October 2013, when Google Motorola announced the project, their blog post declared, "we want to do for hardware what the Android platform has done for software." Ara provides options like choosing from or substituting features like keyboard, display, camera, processor or battery, based on preferences or requirements, onto a base called endoskeleton aka endo. Endoskeleton is an aluminum frame providing structure for other hardware components.
According to a Time reporter, Google and its collaborators have created an endoskeleton platform in three different-sizes - a basic mini platform; a medium platform (equivalent to a mainstream phone); and a jumbo (equivalent to an oversized phablet- phone + tablet).
Google has partnered with NK Labs to do the electrical, mechanical, and software engineering, and with 3D Systems to make a high-speed 3D printer for Ara endoskeleton production. Google plans to sell an endoskeleton for $50 and are naming the first version as 'Grayphone'.
As per the Project Head Paul Eremenko, "we want not just to create something that's custom, and not even just something that's unique, but actually something that's expressive so that people can use this as a canvas to tell a story, so that you can set your phone down at dinner on the table next to you, and it becomes a topic of conversation for the first fifteen minutes of dinner."
Thus, end users are not only getting a customized expression, they are getting a choice to replace any part that malfunctions or upgrading to a newer component. They need not replace a whole motherboard, or give away the phone to stay up-to-date!
They have announced the first ever Ara Developers' Conference on Wednesday, to be held April 15-16 this year. A Time report also claims that, the first modular smart-phone might be commercially released in the first quarter of 2015. However, one has to wait to hear more details about the project till the conference, which will be held online.
