A bigger battery or a better camera: Google’s incredible modular smartphone allows you to CUSTOMIZE your handset
- Google says ‘Project Ara is a new modular computing platform, allowing devices to be customized for style and function’
- Ara provides a frame in which modules such as cameras, speakers, and sensors can be re-arranged by users like game pieces
- Basic structures are designed to hold screen modules, batteries, cameras, sensors, 3G, Wi-fi or other components snapped into place
Consumers may be able to purchase Google’s modular Android-powered smartphone next year.
An advertisement featuring the smartphone was posted to YouTube by the company on Friday.
The tech giant wrote on the website: ‘Project Ara is a new modular computing platform, allowing devices to be customized for style and function.
‘Choose your high-res camera, add a louder speaker, swap in a better battery. Imagine the possibilities. And we’re releasing a developer kit with device later this year.’
The advertisement shows a number of people customizing their handsets for different activities, including listening to music with friends and taking photographs.
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An advertisement featuring Google’s modular Android-powered smartphone was posted to YouTube by the company on Friday
Developers interested in creating applications for the devices will get access to early versions of Ara
The tech giant says: ”Choose your high-res camera, add a louder speaker, swap in a better battery. Imagine the possibilities’
https://youtu.be/TYMsCn_mh_Y
Developers interested in creating applications for the devices will get access to early versions of Ara, which provides a frame in which modules such as cameras, speakers, and sensors can be re-arranged by users like game pieces so as to customize handsets.
Google says on its website: ‘The Ara frame contains all the functionality of a smartphone plus six flexible slots for easy swapping.’
It explains that ‘Ara modules fit neatly into the frame, allowing for upgrades, innovation and style.’
Ara provides a frame in which modules such as cameras, speakers, and sensors can be re-arranged by users like game pieces so as to customize handsets
Google said that a consumer version of Ara should be available next year
Google says on its website: ‘Slide any Ara module into any slot and it just works. Powering this simplicity is Greybus, a new bit of software deep in the Android stack. Greybus supports instantaneous connections, power efficiency and data-transfer rates of up to 11.9 Gbps.’
Word that Project Ara was moving ahead, and not shelved as some had speculated during the past year, came on the final day of Google’s annual developers conference in the Silicon Valley city of Mountain View, California.
Google said that a consumer version of Ara should be available next year.
The principle is simple: basic structures are designed to hold screen modules, batteries, cameras, sensors, 3G, Wi-fi or other components snapped into place with the help of magnets
When the first Ara prototype was unveiled early last year at World Mobile Congress in Barcelona, Google expressed hope the approach would provide easier access to smartphones for people in developing countries.
The principle is simple: basic structures are designed to hold screen modules, batteries, cameras, sensors, 3G, Wi-fi or other components snapped into place with the help of magnets.
If a mobile phone breaks or an updated model is released, instead of buying a new handset a user could simply swap out components.
Pricing of Ara had yet to be revealed, but Google last year referred to an entry-level model with a production cost of $50. Plans to launch Ara in Puerto Rico last year were scrubbed.
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