Back in June, Dr. Kaigham J. “Ken” Gabriel, president and CEO of The Charles Stark Draper Laboratory, advocated modular hardware for mobile devices, citing in particular Alphabet’s Project Ara for cellphones, during a keynote presentation at Sensors Expo.
Now, however, the concept seems to be suffering a setback. Jack Nicas in The Wall Street Journal reports that two people familiar with the project say Alphabet is killing plans to make a modular phone.
Writes Nicas, “The decision to end the project is an about-face for Google, which in May unveiled a new modular-phone prototype to much fanfare at its annual developers conference. At that event, the company said it planned to release the phones to developers by year’s end and start selling them commercially next year.”
Project Ara got its start in 2013, and Alphabet’s advanced technology typically faces a two-year deadline. Nicas reports that the company may be seeking partners to buy or license the technology.
A modular phone would allow users to add modules such as camera lenses, extended-capacity batteries (at the cost of fewer charge/discharge cycles), glucometers, or blood-oxygen sensors.
Nicas suggests that Project Ara may have lost support when the advanced technology group’s head moved to Facebook.
Read Nicas’ complete story here.
