Google’s Project Ara Modular Smartphone Gets Its Own Developer Conference This April

Google is not abandoning Project Ara, after taking over the ambitious experimental smartphone design concept along with the Advanced Technology and Projects (ATAP) group from Motorola. ATAP only just announced Tango, its 3D-environment sensor for mobile devices, and now it’s revealing a two-day developer conference April 15 and 16 at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View.

Ara, for those who aren’t familiar, is a modular smartphone project that would allow users to swap out interchangeable parts to give their device a different sensor load out, a better camera, more battery power or anything else your heart might desire. You source new sensors from a store that would operate similarly to a hardware version of the Play mobile software marketplace, and theoretically upgrade your phone piecemeal instead of having to buy a brand new one every few years just for a few new highlight features.This is the first in a planned series of Ara dev conferences for 2014, Google says, and this event will focus specifically on the alpha release of the Ara Module Developers’ Kit (MDK) which will hit the web in early April. The free platform will offer developers “everything [they] need” to get up and running building Ara hardware modules, ATAP promises. Limited in-person attendance is available, with a $100 fee ($25 for students) covering food and a special social session. Google is approving these based on the strength of your application, so make it a good one.

Ara is meant to be a one-size fits all solution for smartphones, offering anything to any potential user in the world with its range of modules. That’s a hugely ambitious goal, of course, but in ATAP’s own words, they “like epic shit,” so that aim seems within its scope.

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To avoid Android pitfalls, Mozilla shoulders Firefox OS update burden

BARCELONA, Spain -- Mozilla will take over some responsibility for issuing Firefox OS updates that carriers today have, a move that could help users avoid the fate of Android phone owners saddled with older operating system versions.

"We are pushing that envelope," Chief Technology Officer Brendan Eich told CNET. "We think we can get people on Wi-Fi upgrading through Mozilla."

That would mean a person could step into an Internet cafe then update the software as soon as Mozilla releases a new version or security fix, rather than waiting for a handset maker to build, test, and release the update through a network operator partner.But, Eich cautioned, "We are not there yet." OS updates are a risky proposition for carriers, which don't want to risk bricked phones and the attendant customer support difficulties.Part of the change is driven by the fact that carriers aren't necessarily going to be in the loop with Mozilla's $25 Firefox OS smartphone, announced this week at Mobile World Congress here. For that phone, people often will buy the phone from a bin at a retail store, Eich said, picking a carrier later.Operating system updates can be a sore point for smartphones. Most Apple customers upgrade operating systems relatively swiftly, but even mid-range Android phones often don't see new versions of the operating system. That leaves customers without new features, makes lives difficult for app developers struggling to support older models, and exposes people to security risks.Firefox  OS risks this problem, too. Although Mozilla issues Firefox OS updates at half the rate it does with Firefox -- every three months instead of every six weeks -- that's still too fast for some. Alcatel skipped the Firefox 1.2 update  because of some problems with the 1.1 update.Firefox OS is still a young challenger in the marketplace, with the first phones going on sale in July 2013 in Spain, but now it's available in 15 markets, chiefly Eastern Europe and Latin America.

"In the next several months, we'll add 12 new markets," said Jay Sullivan, Mozilla's acting chief executive officer, at a press conference at the show Sunday. "Later in the year, we'll have a large focus on Africa and Asia."

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MWC 2014 Expectations: Launch of Samsung Galaxy S5, LG G Pro 2, Nokia X, Sony D6503 Sirius and More

iPhone 6, Galaxy S5

The much-anticipated Mobile World Congress 2014 (MWC 2014) is all set to begin on Monday and several smartphone makers are expected to announce an array of devices, including Samsung Galaxy S5, LG G Pro 2, Nokia X, andSony D6503 Sirius. The event will be held in Barcelona from 24-27 February, 2014.

Samsung Galaxy S5:

The South Korean electronics giant had sent out a press invite, titled "UNPACKED5", giving a strong hint that it will announce its much-hyped smartphone - Galaxy S5.

The flagship smartphone is expected to boast features like water and dust proof technology, multi-hovering technology and head-tracking gesture control and fingerprint sensor. It is expected to be powered by 2.5Ghz Snapdragon805 (main) or 2.0Ghz Octa-core Exynos6 (64-bit) and feature 5.2 or 5.25-inch AMOLED display. Several reports suggested that it will run on new Android v4.4 KitKat OS.

Sony D6503 Sirius aka Xperia Z2:

Sony is expected to launch its Android flagship smartphone - D6503 codenamed Sirius - at MWC. The device, which is also called Xperia Z2, a sequel to the Xperia Z1, is expected to be powered by a quad-core Snapdragon 800 (MSM8974-AB) chipset and have 5.2-inch full-HD display. It is also expected to run on Android 4.4 KitKat and have 3GB of RAM.

Other speculated features of the device include timeshift video, smart backlight control, and USB DAC audio support.

LG G Pro 2:

The South Korean electronics giant will launch its second-generation phablet, LG G Pro 2, a sequel to Optimus G Pro. The device is expected to have features like 5.9-inch full HD (1920x1080p) LCD screen with pixel density of 373 ppi (pixels per inch), finger-print sensor, Snapdragon 800 series CPU with speed up to 2.2GHz., 3GB RAM, Android v4.4 KitKat OS and 4G-LTE Advance network support.

BlackPhone:

BlackPhone is an upcoming smartphone aimed at outmost privacy, including protection from snooping of private data by NSA. The joint venture by Silent Circle and Geeksphone is backed by Phil Zimmermann who is known for his work in VoIP encryption protocols.

The security-oriented smartphone is powered by PrivatOS. Specifications of the device is not known yet but Silent Circle CEO Mike Janke claimed that it is a high-end smartphone.

Nokia X aka Normandy:

Nokia's Android smartphone, Nokia X codenamed Normandy is all set for debut at the upcoming MWC event.

The budget smartphone is said to feature 4.0-inch WVGA screen with 480x800p resolutions. It is expected to be powered by Qualcomm Snapdragon dual-core CPU backed by 512MB RAM and 4GB inbuilt storage. It is said to run on the tweaked Android operating system pegged as Asha on Linux (aka AoL), an  ASOP (Android Open Source Project) OS version.

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HTC Desire 8 detailed; Google Now watch in the works; Project Tango launches

This coming week should have plenty of Android news from the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. This past week in the Android world wasn’t quiet though. Reported details of the HTC Desire 8 leaked out in advance of MWC. The Desire 8 may be the biggest news from HTC at the show because the company isn’t expected to introduce its next flagship phone until March 25.That means the Desire 8 will be a more affordable device and the alleged specifications show exactly that: A 1.6 GHz quad-core Snapdragon 400, 1.5 GB of memory, 8 GB of internal storage with microSD card expansion, and a 5.5-inch 720p display. The phone also has Boom Sound and a pair of cameras with the rear sensor expected to be 13 megapixels. Apart from the screen size, the Desire 8 is similar to Motorola’s $179 Moto G but with slightly more RAM, a faster version of the same CPU chip and better cameras.Potentially then, HTC could be looking at a device price at $299 or less, which could help boost sales; something the company desperately needs. And that price off-contract could be desirable for consumers with less disposable income, which is the fastest growing smartphone sales segment in the U.S. I’m also expecting the phone to be marketed heavily in China where there are hundreds of millions that don’t yet have smartphones.HTC isn’t just counting on mid-range phones to turn things around. This week a report surfaced suggesting the company is working on three different wearables, with at least one launching this year. The most interesting of the three is an HTC watch based around Google Now; the contextual personal assistant software that Google provides to Android, Chrome and Google Glass.I’ve been on record saying a Google Now watch could be more innovative and successful than smartwatches that run other apps or act as second screens for a phone. If HTC can be the first to deliver such a device, I think it would enjoy some heaver first-mover status until competitors — or even Google — offered the same.Google doesn’t currently have a Google Now watch but it did unveil Project Tangothis week: An Android developer phone that can sense and see the world around it.Google says the goal of Project Tango is “to give mobile devices a human-scale understanding of space and motion.”In order to do that, the company worked with hardware partners to get vision processing and 3D mapping working together in a handset. But Google is just providing the tool; it’s up to developers to see what they can do with Project Tango.

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Google Project Tango to Bring Kinect-Like 3D Awareness to Smartphones

When Google sold Motorola Mobility to Lenovo for $2.91 Billion at the end of last month, many were worried about what this would mean for the future of the team behind Motorola’s modular smartphone project code named Ara. Then one week ago, the ATAP team announced that it would be moving from Motorola to Google. This naturally lead to speculation regarding whether the ATAP team had anything else cooking in their secret ovens. The answer is now here: Google Project Tango.

In its current form, Project Tango is a working prototype of a 5″ smartphone featuring custom hardware and software that is able to, in their words, “track the full 3D motion of the device, while simultaneously creating a map of the environment.” Then through this custom hardware and environment mapping, the device is able to make over a quarter-million measurements per second, allowing its position and orientation to be updated in real-time. In other words, rather than simply knowing its acceleration and orientation like what is possible with gyroscope and accelerometer sensors in current smartphones, Tango also creates a virtual 3D map of its environment and relative position. The current development prototype (obviously) runs Android, and it includes development APIs capable of delivering position, orientation, and depth data to standard Android apps, as well as the Unity 3D Game Engine.

So what can something like this mean? The possibilities are both far reaching and extremely exciting. For example, rather than simply being able to navigate to a particular destination using GPS, these APIs (along with robust mapping data) could allow shoppers to find exactly what they are looking for in large stores. Similarly, such technology could also be used to help the visually-impaired navigate through unfamiliar areas, or it can even be used as the core technology behind an entirely new genre of augmented reality game, adding greater depth and possibilities than what’s currently possible in games such as Ingress.

But if you stand back and think about what makes all of this possible, Project Tango isn’t truly anything new from a technological standpoint. After all, Microsoft’s Kinect platform uses similar technologies to map objects in 3D space. However, this is the first mobile implementation of this sort. Rather, it’s about implementation and what it can mean for developers in the future. As such, the ATAP team is currently looking for developers to create killer apps for the platform.

Starting in the middle of next month, the ATAP team will disseminate 200 prototype dev kits to developers looking to create innovative applications built atop Project Tango’s core APIs. Developers looking to get in on the Project Tango Dev Kit, head over to the Project Tango page and submit your killer app idea. Who knows, you may get lucky and create an augmented reality version of Flappy Bird.

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