Riding on the wave of recent public interest in Phonebloks a project aiming to garner public interest in a modular smart-phone, Motorola recently unveiled Project Ara. Motorola hopes to create the hardware platform needed for third party developers to create compatible modular phone components. Motorola has said that they will cooperate with the established Phonebloks community in development of Project Ara.

Phonebloks, a project proposed by David Hakken earlier this month, hoped to reduce electronic waste and increase user options by creating a fully-upgradeable, modular smartphone hardware. The promotional video urged users to express their interest en masse on October 29, 2013 in order to gain the attention of smartphone companies.

Shortly after news broke about the Phonebloks platform critics began to voice concerns about the feasibility and cost-effectiveness of a modular smartphone. Motorola’s endorsement and launching of Project Ara has alleviated some of these concerns in the short-term. Much of the debate was whether any company would be willing to invest in the technology. Motorola has taken this challenge saying, “we want to do for hardware what the Android platform did for software.”

Motorola will be sending out a developer’s kit this winter.

via The Verge