Google's Project Ara will come to consumers in 2017

MOUNTAIN VIEW, CALIF. — If you've been wondering what's going on with Google's effort to create modular smartphones, also known as Project Ara, wonder no more.

At the company's I/O developer conference, Google showed the progress it's made in building phones that let users swap individual components (like the camera) in and out like they're AA batteries. It also revealed its timetable for Ara's release, with the official developer version coming in the fall and a consumer model arriving sometime in 2017.

During a jam-packed event from Google's Advanced Technology And Projects (ATAP) division, Google's Rafa Camargo, ATAP's technical and engineering lead, gave more details on the technology. The frame of an Ara phone will have slots for several modules, and each slot can support any module. Each slot is capable of transferring data at 11.6GB per second, can draw one-third of the power spec of USB 3.0, and is capable of interconnecting with all other slots in the frame, regardless of position. Read more...