Motorola's 'Project Ara' smartphone platform switches out hardware as easily as apps

We were intrigued by the Phonebloks concept phone that teased the ability to switch out a handset's components the way most users change ringtones, and now Motorola is putting its resources behind it. Called Project Ara, the advanced Technology and Products group is working with Phonebloks creator Dave Hakkens on an "endoskeleton (endo) and modules." Announced this evening on the company blog by Paul Eremenko, the company says it's already "done deep technical work" and is opening the process up to the community and volunteers to begin designing hardware modules. Its stated goal is to do for hardware what it says Android has done for hardware, with suggestions for modules including the phone's CPU, display, extra battery, external sensors or anything else one can think of.