What is "the smart aquarium concept" that Google was trying to raise bearbears with a smartphone?

In September 2016, Google project "Project Ara" which can make smartphones that assembled various modules and packed their favorite functionsAn interruption announcedDid. In this project, various strange and unexpected ideas by third parties were developed at the same time, but some of them included making smartphones have functions like "aquarium".

Complicated. Weird. Beautiful! The secret Google project to put an aquarium full of tiny, wiggly water bears inside your phone | VentureBeat | Mobile | by Harrison Weber
http://venturebeat.com/2017/02/24/complicated-weird-beautiful-the-secret-google-project-to-put-an-aquarium-full-of-tiny-wiggly-water-bears-inside-your-phone/

I am promoting the project "Reproduce aquarium with smartphone on palm" is the team of startup "Midnight Commercial". The company is drawing a face with latte art "Barista BotWe created the concept of "smaho aquarium" by agreeing with the philosophy "Google develops modules that have never been seen in Project Ara".


Although it is "an aquarium," it is impossible to keep real fish in small smart phones. What was invented here is the size of about 1 mmGentle animalIt is a module that you can keep breeding "bearbug" and observe it with camera. The bearbear was an extremely life-threatening creature, an idea in anticipation of survival in the limited space of the smartphone.


For the realization of the smaho aquarium, the initial image image that the development team set up is kore. It is an idea that observation is done at any time by installing a section where the bearbars live in the center of a module that covers the entire body like a smartphone case and attaching it to a smartphone. Of course, Google and Midnight Commercial did not proceed with this project considering the real utility, but it was a project to shape the realizable crazy idea because of Project Ara.


Nonetheless, development is serious. We independently developed such verification instruments, and confirmed and developed whether or not breeding and photographing are actually possible.


Even in the concept sketch, the actual use image is drawn. A few beetles are shown on the screen, when you tap one of them you can enlarge and see various information. As it were, it will be a smart phone with a built-in microscope, but it seems that it was not easy development to have sufficient optical magnification within the very small body to obtain sufficient magnification.


Several problems have also been found in development. Although it was a bearbear that was thought to have high vitality, it turned out that it actually died without being able to endure the heat emitted by the camera. Although it is a strong bearbie to dry and cold places, it seems that it was difficult to endure heat from short distance. In addition, there were cases in which cannibalism began when the plural beetles were contained in the breeding space. By the way, concerning the thermal problem of the camera, when the photograph was taken for a certain period of time and it became hot, the camera was automatically shut down and the use was interrupted until it was sufficiently cooled. In that case, it says on the screen that "Now the bearbears are on holiday, during that time, are you going to watch the movies you've taken so far?"


While faced with various problems, the development of the smart aquarium was advanced, but it was said that it was interrupted with the suspension of Project Ara, which was decided in September 2016. At that time, it seems that all prototypes created as a prototype have been collected by Google. The rough image of the smaho aquarium that was being drawn up to the final stage was as follows and it was thought that a plan to make it a translucent main body with the part that got out. Unfortunately it was a smart aquarium that was never realized, but since it is not denied that it will be realized in a form different from Project Ara, there seems to be the possibility of seeing the sun again in some form.