Futuristic smartphones to allow customization of camera, RAM... almost every spec

Motorola has announced its new interest ‘Project Ara’ that will allow complete hardware customization using the open hardware ecosystem.

That means, phones with components that can be be easily removed and changed to make new phones that is like building a very own smartphones with personal touch. “The design for Project Ara consists of what we call an endoskeleton (endo) and modules.  The endo is the structural frame that holds all the modules in place. A module can be anything, from a new application processor to a new display or keyboard, an extra battery, a pulse oximeter--or something not yet thought of” says Motorola about the new phones that will come as part of the project.

“Led by Motorola’s Advanced Technology and Projects group, Project Ara is developing a free, open hardware platform for creating highly modular smartphones. We want to do for hardware what the Android platform has done for software: create a vibrant third-party developer ecosystem, lower the barriers to entry, increase the pace of innovation, and substantially compress development timelines.

Our goal is to drive a more thoughtful, expressive, and open relationship between users, developers, and their phones. To give you 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”, says Motorola about this project.

But, Motorola is not the only one working on this concept. In the year 2013, Phoneblokcs cme out with the same vision which it called ‘modular phones’. “We want a modular phone that can reduce waste, is built on an open platform and made for the entire world. We are keen on finding the right partners and people to build this phone” says this project.

Not only this Xiomi have also been working on a similar project where it is looking at hardware coming together in form of ‘magic cubes’ to form a customized mobile handset. The project has been called ‘magic cubes’, where each ‘brick’ holds a specific part of the phone, i.e., RAM, CPU, camera or battery.

The idea was shared by Lei Jun, Xiaomi’s founder and CEO on his Sina Weibo account. The pics have been removed. We take a shot from GforGames of the pics posted for you here. Have a look in the next pages.



A glimse into the outcome of Project Ara from Motorola.
 




A glimse into the outcome of Project Ara from Motorola.
 



A glimse into the outcome of Project Ara from Motorola. This is just a prototypoe under test.
 




Phoneblocks concept of a customizable smartphone. Motorola is in talks with the Phoneblocks team sharing information on the phones. "We’ve done deep technical work. Dave created a community. The power of open requires both.  So we will be working on Project Ara in the open, engaging with the Phonebloks community throughout our development process" says Motorla.
 



A peep into the the concept of magic bricks by Xiomi.