Project Ara is a modular smartphone concept; it was initially devised by Motorola and is being worked on by Google (Display Monitor Vol 20 No 48). Project lead Paul Eremenko has announced (http://tinyurl.com/mev2rvr) two developer conferences dedicated to the device next year, and said that the latest prototype – Spiral Two – and developer hardware will be shown.
The first event will take place in Mountain View, USA on 14th January and the second in Singapore on 21st January. The events will focus on the next major release of the Ara Module Developers Kit (MDK): version 0.20. Eremenko promised, “major changes and advances in the MDK”.
Phonebloks posted a video recently looking at the first prototype of the Ara phone: Spiral One. Find it at http://tinyurl.com/lejh5lp.
Separately, sources in Asia have said that Ara is expected to enter commercial production next year. Handset frames will be produced by Quanta Computer and connector boards by Foxconn.
