Google Modular Phones To Go On Sale Next Year

(RTTNews) - Google plans to start selling phones with modular, replaceable parts next year, two years later than initially planned, according to the Wall Street Journal reported.

The project, dubbed Ara, is an aggressive effort by Google to upend the mobile industry by making smartphones' hardware almost as customizable as their apps. The company on Friday showed how different parts could be snapped onto the back of a phone, including high-powered camera lenses, speakers, a glucometer for diabetes patients or a holder for breath mints.

The Ara device will run on Google's Android mobile-operating system. Google could make the base phone itself or work with a hardware partner, as it does with its Nexus smartphones, the report noted.