You want to design your own smartphone? Motorola will allow you to do that. The Google-owned manufacturer has launched Project Ara to create a free, open and standardised platform to let people pick and choose the components they want in their phones. You will be able to mix and match components from different suppliers and build the phone that meets your specific desires (and price tag). “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!”
Motorola said it has been working on Project Ara for more than a year and that it recently teamed up with Phonebloks, which recently showed off a similarly ambitious concept for modular smartphones components that can be easily replaced.
“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,” said a company blog post announcing Project Ara.