by
Mark Ollig
It
could reshape the mobile phone landscape.
In
2013, yours truly wrote a column about a company in the Netherlands called
Phonebloks, who came up with the catchy phrase “a phone worth keeping.”
Phonebloks’
Dave Hakkens, said he was trying to come up with a way to reduce e-waste, which
is the waste accumulated due to discarded electronic parts.
As
we all know, every year the latest and greatest “must have” new smartphone
appears, and tech-savvy folks rush out to purchase it.
Instead
of having their old phone recycled, many times its electronic parts end up in
the trash.
Hakkens
considered this, and thought of a new idea for building an easily upgradable
smartphone using module blocks.
These
domino-shaped module blocks, are self-contained electronic components,
comprised of various features a user can add onto their smartphone.
His
company’s vision was to provide the public with a customizable mobile device, whereby
the user could simply change out modularized, plug-in parts called “bloks” when
updating or adding new smartphone functionality.
This
would reduce e-waste, because instead of buying a new smartphone and throwing
out the old one, a person could simply upgrade their existing phone.
Phonebloks’
social media sites promoted how a new type of smartphone “would consist of a
main [circuit] board onto which bloks could be snapped on by the user, like
Legos. Each blok is responsible for a unique function of the phone.”
Motorola,
which created the first mobile cellphone, became seriously interested in this
concept, and began development of Phonebloks’ idea.
The
development design uses what Motorola calls an “endoskeleton and modules.”
The
endoskeleton, or “endo,” contains the structural frame, and is the physical
core of this new smartdevice holding all the module blocks in place.
An
individual module could be designed for use as a camera, display screen,
medical application, additional storage, gyroscope, extra battery, or any other
application.
Third-party
developers would provide the customized module feature blocks.
This
idea grew wings, and has now taken flight.
So,
exactly how does Project Ara fit into all of this?
Well,
for one thing, Motorola, which initially began working with Project Ara; and
Phonebloks’ smartphone’s Android OS (Operating System), are both owned by
Google Inc.
And
to top it all off, Phonebloks has now partnered with Google.
Google
said since Hakkens’ idea was similar in concept to what they were working on in
Project Ara, the company decided to officially associate themselves with
Phonebloks.
Why
is it called Project Ara?
Google’s
lead mechanical designer is named Ara, and Google chose Ara to be the name of
their new smartphone.
I
would have preferred them calling it the “Markphone,” but that’s just my
personal opinion.
“Project
Ara aims to enable users to create a modular smartphone that is precisely
tailored to their functional and aesthetic preferences,” according to Google’s
Project Ara website.
Google
developed Spiral 2, a prototype Ara smartphone.
Spiral
2 was presented during this month’s Project Ara Developer’s Conference at the
Googleplex, in Mountain View, CA.
The
software and hardware developers attending this conference received the latest
news and information about Project Ara.
These
developers also presented their own ideas and modeling concepts for new feature
modules to be used with Ara.
The
Spiral 2 is 3G capable, includes custom integrated circuits, application processor
board, and a Linaro Android modified OS platform.
The
Ara Spiral 2 uses an endoskeleton structural frame for holding the module
blocks.
Spiral
2 appeared to be using a 4.5-inch display screen module.
Google
will be test marketing the Ara modular smartphone in an actual retail
environment later this year.
The
location chosen for this test is Puerto Rico.
Puerto
Rico has a diverse mobile user base of approximately 3 million.
These
mobile users range from those using entry-level featured phones, to those using
premium smartphones.
At
least 90 percent of Puerto Rico households have one mobile phone.
Smartphones
are used by 77 percent of Puerto Ricans for accessing the Internet.
Puerto
Rico’s cell phone providers and carriers are regulated under the Federal
Communications Commission (FCC).
Release
of an Ara module smartphone on a regional or global level will be determined
after the Puerto Rico test marketing results are in.
How
would you feel about being able to simply snap in a modular component onto your
smartphone in order to add or upgrade a feature on it, instead of purchasing a
whole-new phone?
You
can follow Project Ara on Twitter using @ProjectAra.
Google’s
Project Ara website is: http://www.projectara.com.
Videos
from Project Ara Developers Conference 2015 are at: http://www.projectara.com/ara-developers-conference.
Phonebloks’
website is: https://phonebloks.com/en.
Follow
my ramblings on Twitter via @bitsandbytes.
