Do people want modular smartphones that let them swap out components as they break or become boring? Google's Project Ara is banking on it.
At one of its many offices in Mountain View, Calif., on Wednesday, Google provided an update on Project Ara, the company's effort to turn the smartphone into a modular platform.
Project Ara, which began at Motorola Mobility and was retained when Google sold Motorola to Lenovo, represents an attempt to transform smartphones from a single, generally closed product into an ecosystem of mostly open, connected components.
In the keynote of the second Project Ara developers conference, Regina Dugan, VP of engineering and director of Google's Advanced Technology and Projects group, celebrated the innovative potential of technology platforms at a time of mass manufacturing and mobile transformation.
Platforms are powerful because they abstract complexity so that more people can participate and can accelerate innovation, she said.
Source:
http://www.informationweek.com/mobile/mobile-devices/google-project-ara-8-dev-conference-images/d/d-id/1318621
