Here’s the First Look at the Working Prototype of Google’s Project Ara

Remember Phonebloks, the folks who came up with a revolutionary concept of a phone that can be easily updated and save the environment with the massive e-waste generated each year? The project was taken up by Motorola and named project Ara. The project got passed on to Google after Motorola’s departure from the company, and it seems that they have been working hard to get the concept to reality.

Dave Hakkens, the Dutch designer who was the brains behind Phonebloks paid a visit to one of the contractors working on Project Ara. NK Labs is one of the dozen contract partners who are assisting Google in bringing out this new generation product.

In the video, the engineer assembled various modules onto the device, and it worked. The device is operational and is running an Android operating system. The modules included the LED, battery, application processor, loudspeaker and USB charging bits. The camera and other complex features may be added later, but this is a great start for the project.

Google had announced last week that it will be establishing independent stores where users can go and buy their choice of swappable modules. Paul Eremenko from Google had said that they will be creating a free and open platform on the lines of the Android project. The devices are expected to run Android Lollipop, and the “Spiral 2? prototype will be introduced on January 14th, 2015 at the next developers conference. Now this is one technology we can’t wait to get our hands on, not only is it economically viable, it has an environmentally conscious approach towards technology.