Motorola announces Project Ara modular smartphone

Motorola has just announced Project Ara, a free, open hardware platform for creating highly modular smartphones.

Project Ara aims to do for hardware what the Android platform has done for software which is to “create a vibrant third-party developer ecosystem, lower the barriers to entry, increase the pace of innovation, and substantially compress development timelines.”

ara_1

In essence, Project Ara wants to give users the power to decide what your phone does, how it looks, where and what it’s made of, how much it costs, and how long you’ll keep it by allowing you to replace or customize almost every hardware aspect of your phone.

ara_2

Ara consists of an endoskeleton and modules, with the endoskeleton being the structural frame that holds all the modules in place. These modules can be the CPU, the RAM, keyboard, battery, internal storage, etc. And all of them can be replaced or upgraded.

In case you’re wondering why the concept is very similar to Phonebloks which we wrote about last month, that is because Motorola’s Advanced Technology and Projects group is closely working with Phonebloks creator, Dave Hakkens, on the said project.

phonebloks

As of the moment, Project Ara is in its early stages of development and is gathering feedback from the Phonebloks community and Ara Scouts. In the coming months, Motorola will start sending invitations to developers to start creating modules.

As for the launch, Project Ara is expected to arrive sometime next year.

{via} {source}

Diangson Louie

This article was written by Louie Diangson, Managing Editor of YugaTech. You can follow him at @John_Louie.

https://www.yugatech.com

34 Comments

Tzar Umang says:

11 years ago

So this is it na :-D Cool
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abuzalzal says:

11 years ago

Niche concept for the niche market

I doubt if it will ever succeed (let alone come into fruition)

Motorolla can’t even market and price their own products right, oh well.
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Aburatmoliit says:

11 years ago

Hilig magmagaling ni devil, este devil’s advocate kuno.

Lest you forget, videophone exists only in scifi pictures before.

You won’t admit but there’s a hint of you being awed by the brilliance of the idea but jealous at the same time you were not the one who were able to think about it first.

What have you done, by the way?
Abudaldal says:

11 years ago

Sinisira mo lang ang image ng blog na to. Pwede ka maging politiko :)
wew says:

11 years ago

di man ganun kalakas ang motorola sa smartphone market, im sure kakagatin to hindi dahil sa brand kundi dahil mismo sa phone =D kahit ako di ko iisipin kung anung brand to xempre ung phone muna kasi bago pa lng eh….kung may sumunod na mga ibang companies saka na papasok yang “brand” factor
wowabuzalzal says:

11 years ago

and i guess google heard you. clap clap. not
abuzalzal says:

11 years ago

Shut the fuck up, you fucking boozers!
Aburatmoliittalaga says:

11 years ago

You always wanted to appear to be a know-it-all guy, but even your sentence construction is terribly wrong.

Pa let alone let alone cheche bureche pa, mali naman.

Wrong: I doubt if it will ever succeed (let alone come into fruition)

Correct: I doubt if it will ever come into frution, let alone succeed.

http://forum.wordreference.com/showthread.php?t=240236
teacolandia says:

11 years ago

@Aburatmoliittalaga

Walang mali sa taong nag-do-droga gaya ni @abuzalzal, LOL!

@abuzalzal
Sige, shabu pa, shabu pa!
rasengan says:

11 years ago

kahit ang galing ng concept na to? bka d mo lang naintndhan?

hahaha sana mkpag colaborate sila sa ibang companies na gwin to tulad ng LG kikita parin naman sila ee
LOL says:

11 years ago

As if you are so great in analyzing phones (or maybe you do anal-ing instead?).

I never saw you post any positive comments on any article by Yugatech (heck, you even go ad hominem on the author). While it may be good to criticize be sure to make your comments verifiable and true. Hindi yung para kang asong tahol lang ng tahol o kaya yung kapitbahay naming machine gun ang bunganga.
LOL says:

11 years ago

As if you are so great in analyzing phones (or maybe you do anal-ing instead?).

I never saw you post any positive comments on any article by Yugatech (heck, you even commit ad hominem to the author). While it may be good to criticize be sure to make your comments verifiable and true. Hindi yung para kang asong tahol lang ng tahol o kaya yung kapitbahay naming machine gun ang bunganga.

dan says:

11 years ago

Parang PC na ah BUILD your RIG…
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RJ says:

11 years ago

When the concept pictures from Phonebloks where shown, I felt like, meh. Iniisip ko how would you ensure that each piece stays in place? Pero nung nakita ko na yung mga pictures na yan from Project Ara, it suddenly looks cool and it looks like it has a potential. The endoskeleton blew my mind!
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imgerrymhy says:

11 years ago

i do hope this one snowball to an end product — this might make Motorola a more noticeable phonemaker. The problem however is if no company followed. Sana may mga sumunod din — maybe OEMs.
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Nam says:

11 years ago

HI,

I do hope they succeed with that, but really not sure. Especially motorola lost a lot to apple and samsung…

Cheers Nam
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Diorarat says:

11 years ago

May sugar daddy naman si Moto.

roy says:

11 years ago

hala, nakita ko na to sa kickstarter ah. inadopt ng motorola ung concept
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wew says:

11 years ago

suportado ko talag to mula nung napanood ko ung phonebloks kaso nagdodoubt ako kung kakagatin to ng consumers design-wise,pero nung nakita ko ung photos angganda ng deisgn mas ok pa sa cheap plastic smasung phones =D
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wew says:

11 years ago

mas okay sakin tong phone na ganito para laging top-of-the-line ang specs pero di nasasayang ang mga nabibiling phone na napaglumaan na ang hardware.
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name says:

11 years ago

nice, di mo na kailangan mga bago ng phone taon taon pag naiiwan na yung specs ng ng smartphone mo mas tipid yan
- Reply