Google launches much-awaited Project Ara in Puerto Rico

Did you think modular smartphones belong to the future?

Well, we're here to prove you wrong. Or rather, Google is.

Google is going to put modular smartphones in the hands of Puerto Rican cell phone users this year with their Project Ara.

Google released the most advanced prototype yet for a modular phone at the Project Ara developer conference last week. They showed off Spiral 2, a new Ara prototype that can make a 3G phone call.

Modular smartphones are a new generation of smartphones where individual physical components of the smartphone can be swapped without replacing the phone. These components include: battery, processor, camera and many more.

Google's Paul Eremenko showed off Spiral 2 at the Project Ara developer conference. He said that Puerto Rio was chosen as a launch destination as the country has an "incredibly diverse" population that is almost equally divided between feature-phone and smartphone users. He also hinted that the global launch will follow soon based on the consumer response in Puerto Rico.

Spiral 2 is based on the second version of Google's Modular Development Kit (MDK) for Project Ara, which provides a reference design for developers who want to create their own modules.