Google’s Project ARA to get first Developer’s Conference this April

Project ARA, Google’s plug-and-play smartphone project, is gaining momentum. Via a series of Developers conferences throughout 2014, Google wants to bring Developers from all over the world into the ARA mix. Held at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, CA, it will also have a lifestream for those interested.

 Google says there will be three conferences in 2014, with the first taking place April 15-16. They are also cautioning that space is limited for those wishing to attend in person, but don’t yet say how to sign up. For the livestream aspect, it sounds as if it will be open to anyone who wishes to drop in.

The first conference will center around the MDK, or Module Developer’s Kit. According to the Google+ announcement, “The MDK, which we expect to release online in early April, is a free and open platform specification and reference implementation that contains everything you need to develop an Ara module.” Fromt here, existing and planned technology is going to be discussed.

Unlike I/O can be, it sounds as if physical attendees will be vetted. The post states “The Developers’ Conference, as the name suggests, is a forum targeted at developers so priority for on-site attendance will reflect this. For others – non-developers and Ara enthusiasts – we welcome you to join us via the live webstream.” The Grand Hall of the Museum can seat up to 400, so space really will be limited.

The project started at Motorola, but was left in Google’s care when Lenovo purchased the OEM. As part of the deal, Lenovo would get Motorola as a smartphone manufacturer, but Google would retain all special projects like ARA and patents. Now we know what Google had in mind with ARA, and why they wanted to keep it.