Motorola Teams Up With 3D Systems To Develop 3D-Printed Phones

Pre-Google, who ever imagined that Motorola (Motorola!) would be one of the world's most forward-thinking mobile manufacturers?

The company recently inked a deal with 3D Systems to develop a futuristic 3D-printing production platform for Project Ara, Motorola's ambitious open-source mobile hardware ecosystem.

Project Ara is a push to develop modular phones, which would allow users to mix and match hardware with the ease of downloading and installing software.

Users will be able to upgrade devices with plug-in modules that could be anything from batteries to displays to 3D scanners to toasters--really, anything imaginable. Ara, for all intensive purposes, aims to be a kind of open Android ecosystem for hardware.

When Motorola announced Ara, the company specifically made mention of 3D printing as a key technology that would make an open-source hardware market feasible.