Motorola is not sleeping on its job as it has shown off a project that could see the company develop so-called modular smartphones in the future where users bolt together components to customize their handsets. How cool is this?

This innovation came from a series of public events where people were able to experiment with 3D-printers to come up with their own smartphone concepts.

Led by Motorola’s Advanced Technology and Projects group, what is being called “Project Ara” is now developing a free, open hardware platform for creating modular smartphones.

The design for Project Ara consists of what they 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.

The company said that it would invite developers to start creating modules for the Ara platform in the coming months and expect that  between December and March next year there will be an alpher release of the Module Developer’s Kit (MDK).

This is out of the ordinary, a phone that you assemble pieces of your phone by your self very interesting. What if one looses one part of the phone? will it mean that the user will but another one or can they get a replacement?