GADGET GIZMO SPECIAL Just The Phone You Wanted - In
Bits
Is
building your own phone, Lego-style, the future of smartphones? Google’s
Project Ara thinks it could be
No
idea is too outlandish for Google. Whether it’s driverless cars zipping through
the streets or balloons and drones becoming your next ISP from up in the sky,
this search giant has never stopped at just ‘search’. Not only does it have a
culture that encourages wild ideas, it goes out and tries them out. That’s what
Google now has up its sleeve for smartphones — a Lego kit of sorts.
Here’s the thinking behind Project Ara, the name given to the phone Lego idea. What you get, instead of a gleaming finished smartphone, is the basic skeleton or frame (called Endo), in three sizes. Into this go the modules that will make up the working parts. These could be the battery, the camera, storage, or whatever else anyone dreams up. You could have chunks that add new capabilities or maybe something specific to a business. The lot will work with some future version of Android. The Endo will be grey and drab, but the idea is to spice it up as desired.
The modules, or blocks, going into the Endo will be fit together with ‘electro-permanent’ magnets. The idea is that a user will be able to swap blocks made by third-party companies and developers. So, in effect, you could be going around with chunks of phone parts in your bag or pockets, ready to switch to whatever you need — even the screen. People also see no reason why you wouldn’t be able to 3D-print components to add to the build that makes up your phone. Of course, the outer shell will also be customisable to style. Prototypes or concepts already look pretty good.
Technologists , developers and extreme users of technology are looking forward to Ara. To anyone who finds current smartphones overly feature-filled, a DIY phone will probably sound bizarre. Think of situations when you want to play a game that needs really high horsepower, and you can simply boost your processor by replacing one of the components with one that kicks in more power. Or keep switching your cameras for the kind of pictures you want. Or when you go to work and add a work-related module only to switch it back to your personal stuff when you leave the office. The uses and benefits can be limitless — if it all works out as envisaged.
The Ara phone frame isn’t being thought of as particularly expensive. But, then, it isn’t the whole phone. The blocks will come from different manufacturers with varying costs. Still, the thought is that these Ara phones will be cost-effective on the whole so much so that their release is planned for developing countries, not specially the US. An Ara phone will mean that you don’t change handsets every two years but change what you need to when you need to. At Google’s advanced technology and products unit, engineers are figuring out solutions to potential problems such as components in the Ara build, communicating with each other quickly enough and holding the phone together — both in terms of software and functioning, and physically.
The whole Ara idea sounds most compelling and exciting. As is the strategy behind it — to reach five billion people who don’t yet have smartphones, offering something basic and lasting; and upgradable in bits. These radical modular phones are expected to be out by January 2015. You can take a look at Google’s Ara team on a video online to get a glimpse of some of the challenges they’re trying to tackle. The first hardware developers’ conference on Project Ara has also just taken place to start work at full pelt on this Ikea-like set of components and their functions. The interfaces are being kept minimalistic and simple.
It’s only too obvious that a modular DIY phone, if successful, could be disruptive to the mobile industry. But ‘how’ is very hard to predict. What role will other companies play; what will Android partners like Samsung or Sony do to fit in; who will co-exist with whom, are all questions that will crop up in the coming months.
Meanwhile, dream of your custom-built phone.
Mala BhargavaBW | 140519
Here’s the thinking behind Project Ara, the name given to the phone Lego idea. What you get, instead of a gleaming finished smartphone, is the basic skeleton or frame (called Endo), in three sizes. Into this go the modules that will make up the working parts. These could be the battery, the camera, storage, or whatever else anyone dreams up. You could have chunks that add new capabilities or maybe something specific to a business. The lot will work with some future version of Android. The Endo will be grey and drab, but the idea is to spice it up as desired.
The modules, or blocks, going into the Endo will be fit together with ‘electro-permanent’ magnets. The idea is that a user will be able to swap blocks made by third-party companies and developers. So, in effect, you could be going around with chunks of phone parts in your bag or pockets, ready to switch to whatever you need — even the screen. People also see no reason why you wouldn’t be able to 3D-print components to add to the build that makes up your phone. Of course, the outer shell will also be customisable to style. Prototypes or concepts already look pretty good.
Technologists , developers and extreme users of technology are looking forward to Ara. To anyone who finds current smartphones overly feature-filled, a DIY phone will probably sound bizarre. Think of situations when you want to play a game that needs really high horsepower, and you can simply boost your processor by replacing one of the components with one that kicks in more power. Or keep switching your cameras for the kind of pictures you want. Or when you go to work and add a work-related module only to switch it back to your personal stuff when you leave the office. The uses and benefits can be limitless — if it all works out as envisaged.
The Ara phone frame isn’t being thought of as particularly expensive. But, then, it isn’t the whole phone. The blocks will come from different manufacturers with varying costs. Still, the thought is that these Ara phones will be cost-effective on the whole so much so that their release is planned for developing countries, not specially the US. An Ara phone will mean that you don’t change handsets every two years but change what you need to when you need to. At Google’s advanced technology and products unit, engineers are figuring out solutions to potential problems such as components in the Ara build, communicating with each other quickly enough and holding the phone together — both in terms of software and functioning, and physically.
The whole Ara idea sounds most compelling and exciting. As is the strategy behind it — to reach five billion people who don’t yet have smartphones, offering something basic and lasting; and upgradable in bits. These radical modular phones are expected to be out by January 2015. You can take a look at Google’s Ara team on a video online to get a glimpse of some of the challenges they’re trying to tackle. The first hardware developers’ conference on Project Ara has also just taken place to start work at full pelt on this Ikea-like set of components and their functions. The interfaces are being kept minimalistic and simple.
It’s only too obvious that a modular DIY phone, if successful, could be disruptive to the mobile industry. But ‘how’ is very hard to predict. What role will other companies play; what will Android partners like Samsung or Sony do to fit in; who will co-exist with whom, are all questions that will crop up in the coming months.
Meanwhile, dream of your custom-built phone.
Mala BhargavaBW | 140519
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