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Moto X print ad lets you change its colour on the page

An innovative new print advert for the Moto X lets you change the colour of an image on the page just by pressing buttons.

Joe Svetlik Reporter
Joe has been writing about consumer tech for nearly seven years now, but his liking for all things shiny goes back to the Gameboy he received aged eight (and that he still plays on at family gatherings, much to the annoyance of his parents). His pride and joy is an Infocus projector, whose 80-inch picture elevates movie nights to a whole new level.
Joe Svetlik
2 min read

Whoever said print was dead? A new advert for the Motorola Moto X spruces up the printed page by letting you the reader change the colour of a featured image as you wish, our parent site CNET reports.

The ad -- a video of which I've embedded in this story -- lets you change the colour of the handset on the page. It's all to promote the Moto X's Moto Maker software, which lets you choose which colour handset you buy, as well as which materials it's made from, and its specs, so you can have a phone that's tailored to your needs.

Here's the ad.

It uses a piece of plexiglass inside a page of polycarbonate paper, LEDs, some lithium batteries, and smart circuitry. It's only slightly bulkier than a regular magazine page. And it lets you switch between 11 colour options using the buttons at the bottom. Very neat.

It'll appear in the January issue of Wired in the US. It's a limited run, so will only be available in issues sold in New York and Chicago.

This isn't the first fancy-pants ad the Google-owned Motorola has tried for the Moto X. Its previous one was at bus stops, and would change the colour of the phone on the ad to match the clothing of the person nearest to it.

Which is all well and good, but us Brits still can't buy the Moto X. Motorola never brought it to these shores, and it doesn't have any plans to anytime soon, either. Looks like we'll have to make do with the eminently wallet-friendly Moto G instead. Ho-hum.

Motorola will take customisability to a whole new level next year, when it launches its Project Ara program. This is just like Phonebloks, in that you buy modules, slot them together and make your own mobile that you can upgrade as and when.

Is it the future? Or are customisable phones too complicated for most people? Let me know in the comments, or on our Facebook page.