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AFTER ANNOUNCING ITS intention to map rooms and areas in 3D through Project Tango, Google’s next project is to break smartphones down into blocks, allowing people to build their own custom phone.
The company announced last night it will be hosting its first Ara Developers’ Conference this April. The conference will be one of three that will be held in 2014 and will be held online with a live webstream and an interactive Q&A.
The conference is part of Project Ara, an open-source initiative that would allow users to upgrade parts of their smartphone’s hardware through blocks without having to invest in a different phone.
This would mean you could shop around for separate parts and use them to build or upgrade your own custom phone.
The conference will focus on the alpha release of the Ara Module Developers’ Kit, an open-source platform that is expected to be released in early April. The organisers say that it will be a “detailed walkthrough of existing and planned features of the Ara platform and community feedback sessions.
Project Ara was originally started by Phonebloks and Motorola back in October before Google sold the latter off to Lenovo in January for $2.91 billion.
The conference is very much aimed towards those developers who would be interested in customising their phones beyond the software.
It also hints towards a future where Google will create products that can be customised with individual parts and considering how there are new phone upgrades announced every year, having the ability to replace and upgrade parts of a phone would be appealing to techies.
(Video: Phone bloks/YouTube)
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Nerds wet dream I can’t wait
Yeah that’s usually the way the dream goes for a nerd.
Absolutely class!
Hold on ….some other company floated the modular phone idea a wee while back
Phone blocks, I think it was just an idea or campaign focussing on reusing phones & cutting down on waste. I don’t think they intended on producing it. Maybe Google bought the concept.
I saw that too, ‘block phone’ or something like that? Modular hardware , like that company ‘Xi3′ that Steam were developing with
Yer dead right man, and if I’m not mistaken the story was on here as well! Feckin Google stealing ideas!
Your right it was on Kick Starter
The lads from phone block have been working with project ara
They basically ARE Project Ara.
Didn’t some Dutch industrial designer cone up with the idea first?
Is this a move towards long lasting robust technology? Or another product built to be broken in 18 months? I still have an iPhone 3GS that’s been through the wars and would love a product like this where I could simply upgrade the processor and battery like I upgraded my ‘stock’ Lego castle as a child.
I can imagine the board meeting where this was proposed! “Well we’ve already done pretty much everything imaginable to revolutionise the world, so we thought we’d just start having a laugh!”
Modular phones? You couldn’t make it up!
Lol
I can see it now…..a pracksters dream……”who robbed my speaker block”
Why not – works for the PI Raspberry crowd.
I like.
Considering that most people can’t put together a flat pack bought in IKEA how well would they do in building their own smartphone?
Speak for yourself I’m dead hadn’t putting flat packs together :)
This is it. This is the only innovation that would tempt me away from the iPhone. A fully customisable phone with parts that can be swapped out and upgraded as you go. This is such an exciting prospect.
If you stand on it in the middle of the night, can you still throw it against the wall.
It might break into a few piece’s though….
Would be good for tablets and laptops too. Would save a huge amount of waste. Nice idea.
True, but would a single ‘home machine’ with multiple auxiliaries not be the better solution? As in having one bad ass lump of a pc (always easier to upgrade (and cheaper)) to store and do the heavy processing while we’d simply have various screen sizes that we use as interface? It might be a childhood dream(influenced by Star Trek) but how much cheaper would it be? How many people have bought pricey laptops only to watch YouTube/netflix and use Facebook etc. the salesperson obviously didn’t feel the need to inform them that their i7 processor might be a bit of overkill!
Ps. Buy a tablet if you don’t know what processor is!
True maybe you should patent the idea before they read this. :)
Can’t see any company jumping at the idea of selling once off hardware that will last a decade! I reckon it’ll have to take off with the manufactures of the components selling directly to customers to meet they’re spec requirements , oh wait, you already can! A good DIY guide book should do the job! Sh it ,they could do that before I can :-)
Project Ara sher
Awh man that sounds sweet!
Cannot fooking wait
Ah just…stop.Please
Won’t it make your phone valuable to thieves?
Waste of cash on a project like that.
Seems like they are running out of ideas
Xfactor and dancing on ice are a waste of money!
You’re running out of ideas!
They aren’t.
It’s not their idea.
Google’s latest project?
An acquisition of Motorola which was itself was bought by Google (and kept despite the sale of Motorola) is continuing its development under Google.
Giving Google credit…typical Journal
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