Billed as a project that will lead to a device designed exclusively for 6 billion people, Project Aras goal is to create modular, completely customizable smartphones. At the moment, the closest consumers can get to truly customizing their handsets is to use the Moto Maker online system for picking the color or material of the backplate on a MotoX or MotoG smartphone. As its leader, Paul Eremenko, explains: The smartphone is one of the most empowering and intimate objects in our lives. Originally a Motorola project, but now a fully-fledged Google project, when it was first reported in October the idea seemed like one of Googles moonshots — something that would garner a lot of attention, capture consumers imaginations, but then disappear without trace.