A phone should be as unique as you are—not only in the design of your device, but how you use it. Last year at the All Things D “D11” conference, Regina Dugan talked about new digital tattoo technology that would make it easier to unlock your phone. Now the moment is here: We’re excited to see this new technology brought to life for Moto X by Google’s Advanced Technology and Projects group and VivaLnk Inc.

Over the last six months, our MAKEwithMOTO team took Sticky, a truck wrapped entirely in velcro and filled with rooted, hackable Motorola smartphones and high-end 3D printing equipment, across the country for a series of make-a-thons. On that trip we saw the first signs of a new, open hardware ecosystem made possible by advances in additive manufacturing and access to the powerful computational capabilities of modern smartphones. These included new devices and applications that we could never have imagined from inside our own labs. Open fuels innovation. See some examples here, here, and here.

After the trip, we asked ourselves, how do we bring the benefits of an open hardware ecosystem to 6 billion people?

Meet Ara.

Led by Motorola’s Advanced Technology and Projects group, Project Ara is developing a free, open hardware platform for creating highly modular smartphones. We want to do for hardware what the Android platform has done for software: create a vibrant third-party developer ecosystem, lower the barriers to entry, increase the pace of innovation, and substantially compress development timelines.

Our goal is to drive a more thoughtful, expressive, and open relationship between users, developers, and their phones. To give you the power to decide what your phone does, how it looks, where and what it’s made of, how much it costs, and how long you’ll keep it.

Here’s a sneak peek at early designs for Project Ara:

The design for Project Ara consists of what we call an endoskeleton (endo) and modules.  The endo is the structural frame that holds all the modules in place. A module can be anything, from a new application processor to a new display or keyboard, an extra battery, a pulse oximeter--or something not yet thought of!

We’ve been working on Project Ara for over a year. Recently, we met Dave Hakkens, the creator of Phonebloks. Turns out we share a common vision: to develop a phone platform that is modular, open, customizable, and made for the entire world. We’ve done deep technical work. Dave created a community. The power of open requires both.  So we will be working on Project Ara in the open, engaging with the Phonebloks community throughout our development process, as well as asking questions to our Project Ara research scouts (volunteers interested in helping us learn about how people make choices). In a few months, we will also send an invitation to developers to start creating modules for the Ara platform (to spice it up a bit, there might be prizes!). We anticipate an alpha release of the Module Developer’s Kit (MDK) sometime this winter.

So stay tuned. There will be a lot more coming from us in the next few months.

--Paul Eremenko, and the Motorola Advanced Technology and Projects group, Project Ara Team

Thirty-nine. That’s the number of times the typical person unlocks their smartphone each day. For power users it’s closer to a hundred times per day. At 2.3 seconds each time the phone is unlocked, it adds up to a lot of time spent entering 4-digit PINs or patterns. Because it’s cumbersome and slow, many people never bother with authentication at all, or they use fast but easily-guessed PINs like “0000.”

Our smartphones are central to our digital lives...the keys to our friends, our finances, and a lot of our personal information. Security is increasingly important, but it shouldn’t be irritating. At D11 this year, Regina Dugan, who leads our Advanced Technology & Projects group, talked about futuristic ‘superpower-like’ authentication methods we’re working on. Today we’re launching Motorola Skip for Moto X, which is the first step on the path. 

Skip is a thin, thumb-sized clip that pairs with your Moto X and unlocks it with a simple tap. Wear Skip on your shirt sleeve, shirt hem, belt loop -- wherever it feels most comfortable. It’s fast, easy and secure. It provides all the benefits of a PIN without the hassle.

There are three Skip dots included with each Skip. Skip dots are stickers that, like Skip, provide authentication and also create “trusted zones” for Touchless Control. Try a Skip dot on your dashboard, your nightstand, or your desk at work. Just tap your Moto X to the Skip dot, and your phone is unlocked. Place your phone on the bedside Skip dot, “OK, Google Now, set alarm for 7 a.m.,” or place it on a Skip dot in the kitchen, “OK Google Now, what is cardamom?”

Only Skip and Skip dots that have been paired with your phone will unlock it, and you can easily unpair them if you lose or replace your Skip. If you don’t have your Skip or Skip dot handy, you can still unlock your phone with your PIN.

Once Moto X launches, Motorola Skip with three Skip dots will be available for purchase on Motorola.com. For a limited time, Motorola Skip will be included for free with all orders of Moto X through Moto Maker. To start, Skip will be available in gray with a black accent. We'll be adding colors later this fall, and we'll let you know more about that soon.

Security is important. Skip makes it easy.