Google’s modular smartphone project, known as Project Ara, has taken another step closer to fruition. The Mountain View, California based company has now opened up the applications for developers, in an effort to make developer boards that will help them in building modules.
The company is currently offering three developer boards for prototyping and development purposes. These include,
– An application processor that will be modified using a Strawman TI OMAP 4460 AP along with Linaro Android modified.
– A general purpose endpoint board that allows developer specific functionality and supports the tunneling of different legacy protocols.
– A UniPro switch board representative for the network functionality of the Ara endoskeleton.
Project Ara was originally a project under Motorola, which then came under Google when the former was sold off to Lenovo. Google has said it will launch a $50 (Rs 3,000 approx) smartphone next year, which will have only WiFi. Users can then attach modules to this phone for the functionality that they want