Microsoft May Be Working On A Project Ara Equivalent For PCs

Remember search giant Google's much ambitious and talked about Project Ara? Yes, the same one where the company is exploring the possibility to have an open hardware platform where one would be able to create modular smartphones. Well, it seems, Project Ara has found itself a competitor in Microsoft's newest venture.

According to rumours doing round in the tech rumour mill, Microsoft is building a version similar to Project Ara, the only difference being that it will allow people to put together a modular computing device instead of a modular smartphone as in Project Ara's case.

When we say modular computing device, we're basically referring to customisable Personal computers that will allow for replacement of some specific individual parts rather than pushing the PC users to go for entire new PCs every time they are looking for an upgrade. Yes, such amazing control while assembling your PC might soon become a real deal since a new patent for such a computing device has already been applied by the software giant.

[caption id="attachment_104827" align="aligncenter" width="699"] The new patent comes from one of Microsoft's Surface designers.
[Image: Microsoft Technology Licensing ][/caption]The patent applied by Microsoft has the name of Tim Escolin, a senior designer on Microsoft's Surface devices, as a co-author. Whenever or if ever this becomes a reality, it will become a revolution making way for highly modular Personal computer that will be different from the Personal Computers that are traditionally assembled. The software giant, Microsoft, is known to be a great supporter of modern hardware. In fact, the company in collaboration with Scuf Computing recently unveiled a modular Xbox One Elite controller.

Such a level of granular control while assembling your PC may soon become a reality considering that the Redmond giant has already applied for a patent for such a computing device.

The patent description reads "a computing device comprising: a display modular component including a housing, a display device physically and communicatively coupled to the housing via a hinge, and one or more display hardware elements disposed within the housing and configured to output a display for display the display device; and a computing modular component including a housing that is physically and communicatively coupled to the display modular component, a processing system disposed within the housing, and memory disposed within the housing, the processing system configured to execute instructions stored by the processing system to generate a user interface for display by the display device of the display modular component, the processing system and the memory being swappable within the housing of the computing modular component."

To explain the above description in simple words, one can look forward to a main display unit that will be connected to a stack of hardware which is self-chosen through the means of a hinge. Further, users will be provided with the choice to add or subtract certain components in their stack. The components could be anything from battery to speakers to a graphics card.

So, are you ready for the future? Well, it seems Google and Microsoft most certainly are.

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