Back in October 2013, a YouTube video called Phonebloks took the tech-loving corner of the internet by storm. It showcased a concept for an entirely modular smartphone, where individual components could be changed out on a whim (or as they became obsolete).
In just a few months, one of Google's elite R&D teams (which was borne out of the acquisition from Motorola), spearheaded by the ex-manager of the secretive US DARPA research team, has taken Phonebloks a big way towards reality: designing an in-depth vision for how the modular phone (now codenamed Project Ara) will fit together and run.
The culmination of their effort is an 80-page document for third-party manufactures who want to build modules for Ara; outlined inside is a comprehensive vision of how Google sees the future of smartphones - and the good news is that even with the sale of Motorola to Lenovo, the modular phone creation is staying firmly locked in Google's mysterious project cave
An Ara phone starts life as an endoskeleton (or 'endo', to its friends). Basically a bare motherboard with no screen, processor, battery, or anything you'd normally associate with a smartphone.
Then modules, bought separately or as part of a kit, can be attached to the endo to create a complete phone, which you can switch around at the push of a button to fulfil your particular needs – or that's the idea, anyway.
Initially, Google's planning on manufacturing two endos: a thin 'Mini' and a 'Medium', which is almost exactly the same size as a modern Samsung Galaxy S5. There's also the possibility of a phablet-busting 'Large' version coming out further down the line.
0 comments:
Post a Comment