What started as a viral video is now in serious development in hands of Google which owns Android which is the most popular smartphone operating system. Phonebloks, the concept of modular smartphone, went viral towards late 2013 and sometime later, Motorola, then owned by Google, took the matter into its hands and started Project Ara – Modular smartphone.
After selling away most of Motorola, Google kept the team behind Project Ara to itself and it is involved in active development. Details of the project have been sparse so far and now, a relatively detailed coverage has been revealed on MIT’s Technology Review. The coverage includes a photo of how the device’s backbone looks like.
According to the report, Google is developing two variants of the device – a phablet sized version and a regular smartphone sized version(although the difference between them is blurring these days). The endoskeleton as it is called is made of aluminum and has eight slots of interchangeable smartphone components. These eight slots can transmit data between them through the on-board network.
There are working prototypes of memory modules, processor modules, camera modules and some rarities in smartphones like infrared photography modules for night vision, module to measure blood level oxygen. Google will be providing the endoskeleton for consumers and they can choose their components and specialize their phones for professional photography, environment sensing and others. A full complete working prototype is expected this month.