Since disclosing last fall that an internal research team is developing an open hardware platform for creating highly modular smartphones, Google has offered few details of the effort, dubbed Project Ara.
The project is under way in the Advanced Technology and Projects Group that Google acquired in its $12.5 billion acquisition of Motorola Mobility about a year ago. The research group, headed by the former director of the famed U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, or DARPA, was not included in the agreement Google signed earlier this year to sell the Motorola handset business to Lenovo.
This week, Google announced plans for three Project Ara developer conferences, starting in mid-April. And with that, details about its plans for the modular phone began to emerge.
Computerworld offers a Tip of the hat to Time's Harry McCracken for the most comprehensive look -- by far -- at the goals Google has set for Project Ara and the roadblocks it faces along the way. The story, Project Ara: Inside Google's Bold Gambit to Make Smartphones Modular explains Google's technology and marketing plans as described by Google insiders -- as well as how Project Ara was selected as the name for the project.
Read more about mobile/wireless in Computerworld's Mobile/Wireless Topic Center.