Google has just announced a new processor for Project Ara. The mobile Rockchip SoC will function as an applications processor, without requiring a bridge chip. A prototype of the phone with the Rockchip CPU, will be available early next year

And, Project Ara Team is planning to release major new MDK and new developer hardware. The second Developers Conference is planned to happen later this year.

Delivery of Spiral 1 developer hardware will be delayed because of manufacturing flaw.

Read below the Google+ post published by Paul Eremenko, Head of Project Ara, Google ATAP

Curious to know what the latest is with Project Ara? In early July, we kicked off our second design spiral, built around UniPro network ASICs (instead of FPGAs, as in Spiral 1). Toshiba successfully taped out the first rev of a UniPro network switch and bridges last week. Also last week we had a major design review with a dozen of our partners working on the project. Check out the group photo below of the Ara engineering leads at the headquarters of our design and manufacturing partner, Quanta, in Taipei. As Spiral 2 advances, you can expect to see a major new MDK release and new developer hardware, followed by our second Developers Conference later this year. Speaking of developer hardware, many of you have been wondering what’s going on with the Spiral 1 developer hardware and the prize challenge we announced at Google I/O. Unfortunately the boards encountered a manufacturing flaw–they were plated with the incorrect material–causing several weeks of delay. We anticipate being able to start shipping the reworked hardware within the next two weeks. We will adjust prize challenge timelines accordingly as we determine the ship date. Watch the prize challenge page and our Twitter for updates. We are sorry for the wait. In other Ara news, we just kicked off an effort with Rockchip (http://www.rock-chips.com/a/en/index.html) to create a mobile SoC with a native, general-purpose UniPro interface, so that it can function as an application processor in an Ara module without the need for a bridge chip. We view this Rockchip processor as a trailblazer for our vision of a modular architecture where the processor is a node on a network with a single, universal interface–free from also serving as the network hub for all of the mobile device’s peripherals. We expect to be able to demo the Rockchip UniPro processor in our third design spiral, with a prototype anticipated in early 2015. -Paul Eremenko, Head of Project Ara, Google ATAP

About Project Ara:

Project Ara is the codename for the initiative by Google that aims to develop a free, open hardware platform for creating highly modular smartphones. The platform will include a structural frame that holds ‎smartphone‬ modules of the owner’s choice, such as a display, keyboard or an extra battery. It would allow users to swap out malfunctioning modules or upgrade individual modules as innovations emerge, providing longer lifetime cycles for the handset, and potentially reducing electronic waste.

The first model of the modular phone is scheduled to be released in January 2015 and is expected to cost around $50

Google says the phone is designed to be used by “six billion people”, including the one billion smartphone users and the five billion feature phone users.

Lot of discussions are going about Project Ara in various social media websites.

Initially people didn’t believe that module phone system will be useful and even some people thought it is not possible at all. But it seems now people are expecting updates from Project Ara Team. And, more people are now expecting the release of the ara phone. We can understand this fact if we go through the comments made in this Video