Motorola has got something a little different in mind for the future of the smartphone and that bit of deviation is called Project Ara. The smartphone company, in conjunction with another outfit called Phonebloks, is hoping to short-circuit the cycle of smartphone upgrades by created a modular phone, allowing users to snap in upgraded components or adding features as they are needed.

Project Ara is a “a free, open hardware platform for creating highly modular smartphones” based around an endoskeleton for a device which is able to snap in modules that form the working components of a smartphone. Motorola says that anything from a new processor to a display or a larger battery, right up to a pulse oximeter – whatever that is – could be added to completely customise a smartphone.

To that end Motorola and Phonebloks will be launching an MDK (Module Developer’s Kit, hopefully with a mascot called Kurt) for the device some time in the next few months and they’ll be issuing invites for the creation of potential modules to developers a little sooner than that. As to how popular the idea will prove… the market will have to decide that once it sees some hardware in action.

Source: via Ars Technica