Project Ara: Google pieces together the first modular smartphone – The Verge

Google reportedly cancels Project Ara modular smartphone plans

2016-09-01T22:42:11-04:00

Google has "suspended" work on Project Ara, the initiative to build a phone with interchangeable modules for various components like cameras and batteries, according to Reuters and Recode. The company reportedly may license the technology to other partners, but will not release a phone itself. The decision is said to be part of an effort to unify Google's hardware development under former Motorola president Rick Osterloh.

Although Project Ara has always seemed a dubious commercial prospect, the news is surprising if only because Google made a renewed effort to push the modular concept at its I/O conference earlier this year, promising a dev …

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Here’s what your Project Ara phone could look like as a health tracker

2015-01-21T19:50:02-05:00

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Google's first crop of Project Ara modular smartphones won't be available until later this year, and only in Puerto Rico, but people are already trying to figure out ways to use it differently than existing phones. That includes Lapka, a company that makes a beautiful (albeit expensive) set of sensors for tracking humidity, radiation, and temperature in homes. Where that project was inspired by NASA and designer Yves Saint Laurent, the group has taken new inspiration from designer sneakers to come up with a set of conceptual sensors for Project Ara devices that promises to turn your phone into a portable health testing station. You might not …

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Project Ara: hands-on with Google’s latest modular smartphone prototype

2015-01-14T16:41:58-05:00

Right now, there's a war to make the thinnest smartphone in the world. Google is a part of that with Android and with its Nexus devices. But it's also attacking the very idea of smartphones as we know them with Project Ara: a project to build a phone that doesn't cram everything into the smallest package, but one that lets you pick out and swap every important component. It's a lot like the way many desktop computers still work - but for your pocket.

We just got our hands on a very, very early version of a Project Ara device. It's come a long way since its introduction in 2013, and even more since Google showed it off at its developer confe …

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The Ara Configurator app is how you’ll build your custom Project Ara smartphone

2015-01-14T15:36:09-05:00

Even though Google is a long ways off from selling Project Ara phones directly to consumers, the company took a bit of time to detail its go-to-market strategy, which contained some details on the Puerto Rico pilot program. Perhaps most interesting was the look we got at how users might manage the many potential phone configurations that Project Ara makes possible.

The Ara Configurator, shown off running on a standard Android phone, is the way that users can build out and order phones, and it looked like a pretty nice bit of software at first glance. It's not entirely dissimilar to the concept of Moto Maker - it walks you through designing …

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This is Google’s latest Project Ara prototype

2015-01-14T13:30:31-05:00

Google's Project Ara modular smartphone project is arriving soon, at least if you're in Puerto Rico. At its Project Ara Module Developers Conference today, Google said that it plans to launch a pilot in Puerto Rico in the second half of this year, selling phone chassis and modules through local carrier partners, as well as through a fleet of small trucks.

Google today said there's still lots of work to be done before you find it at stores in the US and elsewhere. The multi-phase project is currently in phase 2, or what Google calls "Spiral 2." It's gone from something that can connect only to Wi-Fi to one that supports 3G wireless, with Goo …

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Google’s modular Project Ara smartphone will begin pilot testing in Puerto Rico later this year

2015-01-14T12:00:09-05:00

Google is holding its second Project Ara developer's conference today in Mountain View and is in the process of giving a roadmap on how and when it might get its modular smartphones out into the market. Probably the most notable bit of news we've learned so far is that Google plans to have a market pilot ready to go in the second half of this year. Unfortunately, if you want to give it a shot, you'll need to live in Puerto Rico - the pilot will roll out in that territory in partnership with carriers OpenMobile and Claro.

When Project Ara hits Puerto Rico, users should be able to customize their devices using the Ara Marketplace and Ara Conf …

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Watch a working Project Ara prototype demonstrated ahead of Spiral 2 reveal

2014-10-30T04:19:24-04:00

The engineers behind Project Ara are trying to make the last smartphone you'll ever need. Their design for a modular device has users slotting components - a camera, extra storage space, a Wi-Fi connector - into their phones, as and when they need them. It's an ambitious scheme, but engineers working at NK Labs in Boston have already produced a working prototype, which they showed off to modular smartphone evangelist Dave Hakkens during a recent visit.

The early model, called Spiral 1, is creamy white and boxy, and a far shot from the beautiful modular models shown earlier this year. But unlike those mock-ups, it actually works, and it look …

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Google will discuss ‘major changes and advances’ for its modular smartphone in January

2014-10-29T11:18:01-04:00

Google plans to update developers on the state of its Project Ara modular smartphones at a series of conferences held early next year, where it'll discuss "major changes and advances" to the tools it provides for making swappable components for the phone. "We have been hard at work maturing and improving the Ara platform," Google's Advanced Technology and Projects group, which is developing Ara, writes in a blog post this morning. The ATAP group also plans to demo the latest Ara prototype at the conferences. Ara phones are composed of many removable pieces that users can change to improve the phone and add new features, but they remain in de …

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Google’s ATAP group is a ‘band of pirates’ making the future

2014-06-26T16:18:10-04:00

The Advanced Technologies and Products group within Google is the kind of place where the smartest people on the planet might want to make their careers, but ATAP won't let them. Instead, it follows Regina Dugan's DARPA model of innovation: tiny teams pick ridiculously ambitious goals and then try to achieve them in two years - and achieve them at a real, meaningful scale.

Three teams from ATAP presented their progress here at the Google I/O Developer conference. We saw Project Tango, which is making wild 3D-sensing, spatially-aware tablets. We also got an update on Project Ara, which is moving forward with modular smartphones. Finally, we …

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Google turns on its crazy modular phone in public for the first time

2014-06-26T12:42:28-04:00

Speaking today at Google I/O, the technical lead for Project Ara, Paul Eremenko, showed off the progress his team has made since we saw the very early first prototypes this past April. He showed off a functional, form-factor prototype. Which is a nerdy way of saying that for the first time publicly, we saw a modular Ara phone power on. It took its sweet time, but after several rounds of supportive applause from the audience, it booted. And froze. But over the course of the session, the team kept at it to get it past the boot screen (though to no avail). So not the most successful demonstration, but enough to show progress.

Eremenko also ann …

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