Smartphones And Mobiles
Over the last six months, our MAKEwithMOTO team took Sticky, a truck wrapped entirely in velcro and filled with rooted, hackable Motorola smartphones and high-end 3D printing equipment, across the country for a series of make-a-thons. On that trip we saw the first signs of a new, open hardware ecosystem made possible by advances in additive manufacturing and access to the powerful computational capabilities of modern smartphones. These included new devices and applications that we could never have imagined from inside our own labs. Open fuels innovation. See some examples here, here, and here.
After the trip, we asked ourselves, how do we bring the benefits of an open hardware ecosystem to 6 billion people?
Meet Ara.
Led by Motorola?s Advanced Technology and Projects group, Project Ara is developing a free, open hardware platform for creating highly modular smartphones. We want to do for hardware what the Android platform has done for software: create a vibrant third-party developer ecosystem, lower the barriers to entry, increase the pace of innovation, and substantially compress development timelines.
Our goal is to drive a more thoughtful, expressive, and open relationship between users, developers, and their phones. To give you the power to decide what your phone does, how it looks, where and what it?s made of, how much it costs, and how long you?ll keep it.
Here?s a sneak peek at early designs for Project Ara:
The design for Project Ara consists of what we call an endoskeleton (endo) and modules. The endo is the structural frame that holds all the modules in place. A module can be anything, from a new application processor to a new display or keyboard, an extra battery, a pulse oximeter--or something not yet thought of!
We?ve been working on Project Ara for over a year. Recently, we met Dave Hakkens, the creator of Phonebloks. Turns out we share a common vision: to develop a phone platform that is modular, open, customizable, and made for the entire world. We?ve done deep technical work. Dave created a community. The power of open requires both. So we will be working on Project Ara in the open, engaging with the Phonebloks community throughout our development process, as well as asking questions to our Project Ara research scouts (volunteers interested in helping us learn about how people make choices). In a few months, we will also send an invitation to developers to start creating modules for the Ara platform (to spice it up a bit, there might be prizes!). We anticipate an alpha release of the Module Developer?s Kit (MDK) sometime this winter.
So stay tuned. There will be a lot more coming from us in the next few months.
--Paul Eremenko, and the Motorola Advanced Technology and Projects group, Project Ara Team
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Smartphones And Mobiles
Goodbye Sticky. Hello Ara.
Over the last six months, our MAKEwithMOTO team took Sticky, a truck wrapped entirely in velcro and filled with rooted, hackable Motorola smartphones and high-end 3D printing equipment, across the country for a series of make-a-thons. On that trip we saw the first signs of a new, open hardware ecosystem made possible by advances in additive manufacturing and access to the powerful computational capabilities of modern smartphones. These included new devices and applications that we could never have imagined from inside our own labs. Open fuels innovation. See some examples here, here, and here.
After the trip, we asked ourselves, how do we bring the benefits of an open hardware ecosystem to 6 billion people?
Meet Ara.
Led by Motorola?s Advanced Technology and Projects group, Project Ara is developing a free, open hardware platform for creating highly modular smartphones. We want to do for hardware what the Android platform has done for software: create a vibrant third-party developer ecosystem, lower the barriers to entry, increase the pace of innovation, and substantially compress development timelines.
Our goal is to drive a more thoughtful, expressive, and open relationship between users, developers, and their phones. To give you the power to decide what your phone does, how it looks, where and what it?s made of, how much it costs, and how long you?ll keep it.
Here?s a sneak peek at early designs for Project Ara:
We?ve been working on Project Ara for over a year. Recently, we met Dave Hakkens, the creator of Phonebloks. Turns out we share a common vision: to develop a phone platform that is modular, open, customizable, and made for the entire world. We?ve done deep technical work. Dave created a community. The power of open requires both. So we will be working on Project Ara in the open, engaging with the Phonebloks community throughout our development process, as well as asking questions to our Project Ara research scouts (volunteers interested in helping us learn about how people make choices). In a few months, we will also send an invitation to developers to start creating modules for the Ara platform (to spice it up a bit, there might be prizes!). We anticipate an alpha release of the Module Developer?s Kit (MDK) sometime this winter.
So stay tuned. There will be a lot more coming from us in the next few months.
--Paul Eremenko, and the Motorola Advanced Technology and Projects group, Project Ara Team
- Apple?s Researchkit Is Now Available To All Developers And Medical Professionals
There was more than a new MacBook and smartwatch at Apple?s Spring Forward event last month. The company?s open-source ResearchKit software ? a set of developer tools to allow medical researchers to turn Apple devices into research and diagnostics...
- Google Planning To "boosting Overall Performance" For Upcoming Version Of Android
It is very rare to see a piece of news or any story based on a bug or crash report that is committed to the Android Open Source Project. While there are likely a dozens of issues submitted to Google by smart phone users that are very poorly written...
- Download Focal, Beautiful Photography Apps For All Android Devices For
Currently, Focal, unique photography applications for the Android operating system is integrated in a project new ROM cook project called Project Nemesis was able to download. Focal will have a friendly interface to easily get familiar with the new user....
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We want to give you the freedom to choose the mobile experience that?s right for you, which is why we are proud to be the first hardware partner to bring you Google?s Project Fi on Nexus 6 by Motorola. Google recently introduced Project Fi -- a wireless...
- Disney Legend Glen Keane Joins Motorola?s Spotlight Stories
To animate means to bring to life. Glen Keane?s work seems larger than life. As the creator and animator of beloved Disney characters such as Ariel from The Little Mermaid, Aladdin, Pocahontas, the Beast from Beauty and the Beast, and Tarzan, Glen has...