Google’s Advanced Technology and Projects group has been checking in with us every couple of months to let us know how Project Ara is doing, and today the team shared another update on progress of its modular smartphone.
Google ATAP says that it’s planning to a “major new MDK release and new developer hardware” for later in 2014. It’s also planning its second Developers Conference for later this year.
The group also touched on its efforts to create a new processor for its modular handset. Google ATAP says that its collaborating with Rockchip to create a new mobile system on a chip with a “native, general-purpose UniPro interface.” The group says that the chip will serve as a single node on a network with a universal interface rather than as the network hub for all of the phone’s peripherals. This means that it will be a good fit for Ara’s modular, swappable hardware.
Most of the Ara news that we’ve heard lately is focused more on developers rather than regular users, and today isn’t much different. Still, it’s good to see the modular smartphone effort continuing to make progress toward becoming a real, consumer-ready product.
