Select Your Smartphone Hardware Components like Software Android app

[PakEye]

$50 Project Ara Modular Smartphone Coming in January
BYSTEPHANIE MLOT

Google's Project Ara initiative aims to change the future of smartphones, and it just might, when the first modular device launches in January for $50.

During this week's Project Ara Developers Conference, leader Paul Eremenko announced the "Gray Phone"—an intentionally boring handset expected to be personalized.

"It's called the Gray Phone because it's meant to be drab grey to get people to customize it," Eremenko told the crowd, according to CNET.

Consumers can choose their operating system, phone case, and applications, so why not let them choose the handset's hardware design? That's the question Google tackles with Project Ara, an open hardware platform that relies heavily on miniaturized components and 3D printing.

The Ara group has already partnered with 3D Systems and Phonebloks, and plans to collaborate with more partners, including academic experts at MIT and Carnegie Mellon, CNET said.

Project Ara is housed within Google's Advanced Technology and Projects (ATAP) group, and overseen by Regina Dugan, former director of the U.S. Defense Department's Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA).

The team was unveiled in October and tasked with doing for hardware what the Android platform has done for software: create a vibrant third-party developer ecosystem. Initially part of Motorola Mobility, Google retained ATAP when the companies split up in January.

Early this month, Google's team showed off a prototype of the phone's structural frame, highlighting electro-permanent magnets which keep in place components like an application processor, keyboard, extra battery, or pulse oximeter.

But there's still one flaw in the design: the Android operating system does not yet support Ara's dynamic hardware.

"The good news is that we're Google," Eremenko joked during Tuesday's event, adding that necessary drivers will be ready in December, serving as one of the team's last tasks before public release.

And unlike most smartphones, Ara's handset is built to last five or six years—with continuous component updates, of course.

Last week, Google unveiled version 0.10 of its Module Developers Kit for Project Ara, offering mobile developers the bits and pieces needed to create a fully modular smartphone.

Tuesday and Wednesday's event marked the first of three planned developer conferences; the next are set for July and September, though specific dates were not revealed.

For more, watch PCMag Live in the video below, which discusses the $50 Project Ara smartphone.

 

[PakEye]

Google Releases Module Developers Kit for Project Ara
BYDAVID MURPHY

Time to get designing, mobile developers: Google has officially unveiled version 0.10 of its Module Developers Kit for Project Ara.

With it, those looking to build the bits and pieces that combine into a fully modular smartphone will have a better idea of what they'll be able to do and what restrictions they're otherwise bound to for their Ara components.

If this all sounds like a bit of gobbledygook, we'll backtrack: Project Ara is Google's pet project — technically Motorola Mobility's, back when Google owned the manufacturer — that's looking to flip the mobile world around by giving customers a chance to fully customize their smartphones as they see fit. To do this, the smartphones themselves will be modular: Users can pick and choose different components from different vendors and, in a first for the mobile world, presumably upgrade their devices on the fly as newer and better hardware arrives.

"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," Motorola said last year in announcing Project Ara. "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."

As for the MDK, the 85MB download — clocking in at 81 pages — goes over the various combinations of modules and "endos," or phone endoskeletons (which only Google will be manufacturing at first), that can be used to create one of three differently sized Ara phones: mini, medium, and large.

For example, Google notes that Ara smartphones cannot have any vertical "spines," or vertically configured modules, for their front paneling. All front-facing modules must run horizontal, and only two "ribs," or the horizontal "lines" that create the phone's sections, can appear on the front of a phone at any given time. Ribs must be split, too: In other words, you can sandwich the primary "endo" between two modules, but that's it. The rear of the phone is much more configurable as to the number of horizontally and vertically oriented modules it can support. Aesthetics!

"This is a very early version but our goals are to give the developer community an opportunity to provide feedback and input, and to help us ensure that the final MDK— anticipated at the end of 2014— is elegant, flexible, and complete," reads the Google ATAP Google+ Page.

Project Ara Developers Conference kicks off next week at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, CA. For more, check out Google's recent sneak peek at Project Ara in the video below.

 

[Black Eagle 90]

Google Releases Module Developers Kit for Project Ara
BYDAVID MURPHY

View attachment 25325

Time to get designing, mobile developers: Google has officially unveiled version 0.10 of its Module Developers Kit for Project Ara.

With it, those looking to build the bits and pieces that combine into a fully modular smartphone will have a better idea of what they'll be able to do and what restrictions they're otherwise bound to for their Ara components.

If this all sounds like a bit of gobbledygook, we'll backtrack: Project Ara is Google's pet project — technically Motorola Mobility's, back when Google owned the manufacturer — that's looking to flip the mobile world around by giving customers a chance to fully customize their smartphones as they see fit. To do this, the smartphones themselves will be modular: Users can pick and choose different components from different vendors and, in a first for the mobile world, presumably upgrade their devices on the fly as newer and better hardware arrives.

"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," Motorola said last year in announcing Project Ara. "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."

As for the MDK, the 85MB download — clocking in at 81 pages — goes over the various combinations of modules and "endos," or phone endoskeletons (which only Google will be manufacturing at first), that can be used to create one of three differently sized Ara phones: mini, medium, and large.

For example, Google notes that Ara smartphones cannot have any vertical "spines," or vertically configured modules, for their front paneling. All front-facing modules must run horizontal, and only two "ribs," or the horizontal "lines" that create the phone's sections, can appear on the front of a phone at any given time. Ribs must be split, too: In other words, you can sandwich the primary "endo" between two modules, but that's it. The rear of the phone is much more configurable as to the number of horizontally and vertically oriented modules it can support. Aesthetics!

"This is a very early version but our goals are to give the developer community an opportunity to provide feedback and input, and to help us ensure that the final MDK— anticipated at the end of 2014— is elegant, flexible, and complete," reads the Google ATAP Google+ Page.

Project Ara Developers Conference kicks off next week at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, CA. For more, check out Google's recent sneak peek at Project Ara in the video below.

Pakistan should be building such phones.

 

[PakEye]

3D Systems Provides Inside Look at Project Ara Work
By Stephanie Mlot, May 2, 2014 01:10pm EST
3D Systems this week offered a preview of its early Project Ara 3D printing progress.
A DIYer's delight, Google's Project Ara modular smartphone has garnered a lot of attention for its piecemeal approach to personalization via miniature components and 3D printing.
The Ara team last year partnered with 3D Systems to produce a high-speed printing platform for the phone, and this week, 3D Systems offered a preview of some of its early progress.
In anticipation of the January 2015 launch date, 3D Systems has taken a step back from the typical "reciprocating platform" found in many contemporary 3D printers.
Instead, the company is aiming for more productive print rates ("of millions and hopefully billions of units") with a continuous motion system, built around a racetrack architecture. This machine, the team said, ditches the frequent acceleration and deceleration process in favor of a continuous flow with "off ramps" for additional steps.
"The dynamic and evolving technology that is changing the way we think and make is also changing the way it thinks and makes," 3D Systems said in a blog post.

The Project Ara open hardware platform launched in October under Motorola's care; but when Google sold its handset division to Lenovo this year, it held onto the build-it-yourself Ara project.

During last month's Project Ara Developers Conference—the first of three scheduled this year—Google announced the $50 "Gray Phone," an intentionally boring device expected to be personalized.
Consumers recently got a peek at a prototype of the phone's structural frame in a video highlighting electro-permanent magnets which keep in place components like an application processor, keyboard, extra battery, or pulse oximeter.
"Rather than chucking your whole device for a new camera, you simply slide out the old one and clip in the new one," 3D Systems said. "Badda-bing, badda-boom: you have a better phone with less waste."
The 3D printing firm is also working with Carnegie Mellon University and X5 Systems on printing functional components like antennas. According to this week's update, modules will be printable in full spectrum CMYKWT color plus support, in hard and soft composite materials.
"The combination of exponential creation technology with exponential information technology translates to unprecedented capability and adaptability for the consumer," 3DS CTO Chuck Hull said in a statement. "The scale of this project and its practical functionality are an exciting step into the future."
Google last month released version 0.10 of its Module Developers Kit, opening the door to developers looking to get in on the ground floor of the Ara smartphone.
For more, see Project Ara Is Technology's Best Hope for a Maker Nation.