It looks like Canonical’s mobile mission is more ambitious than just smartphones.

The company today announced Ubuntu on tablets, a gesture-focused build of the operating system optimized for devices with larger screens.

As with the Ubuntu phone interface, the Ubuntu tablet interface is built to scale, meaning that it can (in theory) work just as well on a 7-inch screen as it can on a 20-inch one. This “one OS, all screens” strategy is core to what Canonical is trying to do with the mobile Ubuntu (though it’s not without its share of drawbacks).

The rest of tablet Ubuntu’s features are largely identical to those on the phone build — same interface, same universal hub, same notification center. That’s all intentional.

Canonical, however, has added some neat features to the tablet OS, the most interesting of which is called “side stage.” Clearly influenced by Windows 8′s app snap feature, side stage allows Ubuntu to run a phone app (say, Skype) alongside a desktop app (like a web browser). Canonical calls it “true multitasking.”

Canonical isn’t talking hardware partners just yet (likely because there aren’t any), but developers will be able to run Ubuntu on tablets like the Nexus 7 and Nexus 10 starting this Thursday.

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Early Bird Tickets on Sale

Developers (and plenty of brave geeks) will soon be able to get a taste of Ubuntu’s smartphone version — assuming they have a Galaxy Nexus or Nexus 4.

Ubuntu developer Canonical announced today that it will release a Developer Preview image, along with the necessary tools to install it, for the two Nexus devices on Feb. 21. The company will also be flashing devices on-site at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona from Feb. 25-28.

Canonical says the image will be of the latest developmental milestone for the touch-based Ubuntu (which really needs a catchier name). Developers will be able to build apps using the developer preview, as well as port them to Ubuntu on other devices.

“Our platform supports a wide range of screen sizes and resolutions,” said Canonical’s Pat McGowan, who’s heading up the release of the touch-based Ubuntu image, in a statement today. “Developers who have experience bringing up phone environments will find it relatively easy to port Ubuntu to current handsets.”

Based on the little I’ve seen so far, Ubuntu’s smartphone play brings an intriguing combination of elegance and developer-friendliness — despite likely being doomed to fail. The platform relies on an extensive gesture-based interface that sits somewhere between iOS and Windows Phone, and it also treats HTML5 apps the same as native apps (which makes it much easier to develop for).

Check back next week for our full impressions of Ubuntu on the Nexus 4.

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Early Bird Tickets on Sale

Linux diehards, rejoice! The Ubuntu smartphone is coming, and it’ll be here in about eight months.

Ubuntu for smartphones will use all four corners of the screen, giving us what Ubuntu maker Canonical calls “a more immersive experience” than the smartphone interfaces we’re already used to.

Perhaps most interestingly, the “superphones” will be able to dock to a monitor, keyboard, and mouse and deliver a PC-like experience. That’s a lot of computing power in a little package — the Galaxy Nexus, to be exact, one of the current flagships of the Android fleet.

According to Mark Shuttleworth, founder and CEO of Canonical, who spoke to the Wall Street Journal about the news, the first Ubuntu smartphones will start shipping in October 2013. Application developers will have access to the OS this month so they can start building for the devices.

Canonical expects big corporate customers to be among the first to adopt the device. “Ubuntu uniquely gives handset OEMs and mobile operators the ability to converge phone, PC, and thin client into a single enterprise superphone,” the company said in a statement on the release last month.

Other features we know about:

Edge magic: thumb gestures from all four edges of the screen enable users to find content and switch between apps faster than other phones.
Deep content immersion – controls appear only when the user wants them.
A beautiful global search for apps, content and products.
Voice and text commands in any application for faster access to rich capabilities.
Both native and web or HTML5 apps.
Evolving personalised art on the welcome screen.

The real question is whether the Ubuntu-running Nexus can beat the BYOD (bring your own device) trend, which heavily favors Android and iOS, the most popular smartphone operating systems. Another big competitor for enterprise mobile is Windows Phone, which has consistently pitched itself to IT types as the secure, integrated, logical choice for corporate use.

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Early Bird Tickets on Sale

If there’s anything the world doesn’t need right now, it’s another mobile operating system. Between iOS, Android, Windows Phone, and soon BlackBerry 10, the smartphone market is officially at saturation point.

But don’t tell that to Canonical, the UK-based software company that’s rolling out a mobile version of the Ubuntu Linux operating system.

At face, the mobile Ubuntu looks like a three-way love child between iOS, Android, and webOS. It’s well-designed, open, and, most evidently, doomed to fail.

Why? Blame the app ecosystem. For developers, there’s a constant chicken-and-egg problem with creating apps for new operating systems: Why invest in a new OS if no one is using it?  It’s a concern that’s plagued Windows Phone, and one that will create a lot of issues for Ubuntu.

Analyst Jack Gold summarizes it well. “You can’t have a credible mobile solution without an ecosystem,” he told me.

But that’s not the end of the story for me. Ubuntu is more than just a mobile operating system: It’s essentially a desktop as well. Canonical has built the OS to scale, designing it so that it can thrive in multiple use environments, no matter what the screen size.

Lapdock, you left us too soon.

That sort of scalable design is something many companies have tried, but few have managed to pull it off so far. Motorola, for example, explored similar themes with its ill-fated Lapdock accessory, a device with great ideas but awful execution. Not only was it too expensive, but it supported only a handful of phones. It never really stood a chance.

Microsoft has also made similar attempts at design scalability with Windows 8, which it designed  for both keyboard-less tablets and touchscreen-less desktops. But Windows 8′s scalability has largely fallen flat: It really does need a touchscreen to flourish, as just about anyone who’s used it can confirm.

Creating operating systems that can run effectively on different screen sizes is really, really tough.

This, in the end, gives Ubuntu a significant opportunity to bridge the gap between mobile and desktop — two gadget categories that are separated nowadays not by processing power but by screen size. Whether Canonical can pull it off is still unknown, but Gold is skeptical of the entire endeavor.

“The way you interact with various devices should be different because they have different use cases. That’s why “one size fits all”  doesn’t really work,” he said.

That’s a bit of a bummer to hear, given that scalability is one of the most interesting parts about what Canonical is trying to do with Ubuntu. Without that, the OS really doesn’t have much going for it, at least at first glance.

“Everyone wants to be in the mobile space, but that doesn’t mean they can all be good at it,” Gold said.

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Early Bird Tickets on Sale

After sending geek hearts aflutter on the desktop, the popular Linux variant Ubuntu is now aiming to take over your smartphone. And in a weird way, it could also lead to an even bigger breakthrough for Ubuntu on the desktop.

Canonical, the company behind Ubuntu, today announced the mobile version of its operating system. Phones running Ubuntu won’t be available until 2014, but Canonical says its first device will come from a “high end” Android manufacturer. The company will offer a test build for the Galaxy Nexus in the next few weeks.

Ubuntu for phones sports an elegant user interface that lies somewhere between iOS and Windows Phone, even though it’s built atop Android’s kernel. You can swipe from any screen edge (similar to Windows 8) to unlock functionality — for example, swiping from the left edge reveals your favorite apps, while swiping from the right lets you jump through running apps. Instead of a lock screen, it features an artistic personalized screen that evolves with you.

“It’s not a lock screen, it’s not a barrier … it’s a welcome screen,” said Canonical chief executive Mark Shuttleworth in an announcement video released today (below).

But perhaps most importantly, Ubuntu phones will also be dockable with a monitor, keyboard, and mouse — theoretically transforming them into desktop replacements. And while Canonical didn’t say this outright, there’s certainly the potential for Ubuntu phones to plug into a laptop shell. (Who would have thought Ubuntu’s most significant foray into mainstream desktops would have come via the phone?)

Ubuntu’s plan to power a desktop platform with your phone sounds similar to Motorola’s innovative, but ultimately doomed, Webtop concept on Android phones. As much as we expect smartphones and tablets to replace traditional computers, some will still have a need for big screens and keyboards to actually get work done over the next decade.

It’s going to be tough for Ubuntu to make much of a dent in mobile since it won’t have any devices to show until next year. But at this point, it looks more elegant than Android, and more functional than Windows Phone. It also fits right in with Ubuntu’s quest to cover all multiple screens — Canonical also has a version of the OS optimized for televisions.

With today’s announcement, the battle between smartphone platforms just got a lot more interesting.

Via The Verge

Ubuntu is one of the most popular versions of Linux. Stallman is talking about its new network search feature, which he believes spies on the users:

Ubuntu, a widely used and influential GNU/Linux distribution, has installed surveillance code. When the user searches her own local files for a string using the Ubuntu desktop, Ubuntu sends that string to one of Canonical’s servers. (Canonical is the company that develops Ubuntu.)

Canonical CEO Mark Shuttleworth talked about the feature on his personal blog, prophetically subtitled “here be dragons.” Essentially, searching your files on your computer is also, by default, an online search. That online search includes potentially relevant results from Amazon, and if you buy something, Canonical gets a cut. This is not advertising, according to Shuttleworth:

“We’re not putting ads in Ubuntu. We’re integrating online scope results into the home lens of the dash.”

That extremely fine, perhaps microscopic distinction has escaped some of Canonical’s customers, who are wondering why, in the first place, a desktop search should be integrated with an online search, and why, in the second place, that online search wouldn’t be a Google search instead of a online retailer.

As JunCTionS says in a comment on Shuttleworth’s blog post:

Sorry if this is clear to everyone else, but you don’t seem to mention any typical websearch engine. I imagine there are even more Ubuntu users that use Google than those that use Amazon. Will it also search Google?

… it sounds to me that this would be more useful than an Amazon search engine.

For Stallman, however, the core issue is not advertising, although that’s certainly unwelcome. The core issue is the exchange of personal user information … even though Canonical does not send any personal information to Amazon, running the Amazon search query on its own servers based on information that it retains.

That has failed to mollify RMS, who wrote that “it is just as bad for Canonical to collect your personal information as it would have been for Amazon to collect it.”

Shuttleworth’s answer seems to be: just trust us. After all, we control your machine anyways — we have administrator privileges on your computer:

We are not telling Amazon what you are searching for. Your anonymity is preserved because we handle the query on your behalf.

Don’t trust us? Erm, we have root. You do trust us with your data already. You trust us not to screw up on your machine with every update. You trust Debian, and you trust a large swathe of the open source community. And most importantly, you trust us to address it when, being human, we err.

That is not very compelling or simpatico.

In a post on the Canonical blog today, the company addressed the issue again, at least to a degree. After running through the new capabilities — searches for the Beatles will bring up their music on Amazon, where it can be instantly purchased without opening a browser — Canonical says that privacy has been a primary concern while developing this service:

Privacy is extremely important to Canonical. The data we collect is not user-identifiable (we automatically anonymize user logs and that information is never available to the teams delivering services to end users), we make users aware of what data will be collected and which third party services will be queried through a notice right in the Dash, and we only collect data that allows us to deliver a great search experience to Ubuntu users.  We also recognize that there is always a minority of users who prefer complete data protection, often choosing to avoid services like Google, Facebook or Twitter for those reasons – and for those users, we have made it dead easy to switch the online search tools off with a simple toggle in settings.

Aside from the issue of how unusual it would be for someone to be searching their own computer for commercially-useful queries like “the beatles,” or “Lord of the Rings movie,” this is unlikely to satisfy privacy advocates.

And it most certainly will not satisfy RMS.

photo credit: Maurizio Scorianz via photopin cc, Hat tip: Ars Technica

Joining the ranks of Apple and Google, Linux is entering the TV market with an Ubuntu TV. Canonical, the team behind the Linux based Ubuntu operating system, debuted the Ubuntu TV at CES on Monday.

No wires, no boxes, no remote is the mantra of the Ubuntu TV. Controls will be touch and gesture based, with the ability to use a smartphone as a remote as well. Of course, the TV will connect to cable and broadcast signals, but all the snazzy features that Internet TVs are known for will also be included; DVR abilities, access to online movies and TV shows, streaming capabilities and apps. To find all of the content you heart can desire, Ubuntu TV will use intelligent search that will also give you suggestions based on what you watch. And of course, what Internet TV would be complete without cloud capabilities? Ubuntu One, Ubuntu’s own cloud, will be built into the new TV so users can watch their movies and TV shows stored on other devices.

True to Linux’s nature, Ubuntu TV’s operating system will be free. However, manufacturers will have to pay Canonical a service fee for each unit. Whether or not this will keep the price low enough to be desired by consumers is to been seen. And who knows, TV manufacturers may pass it over in favor of Apple and Google backed projects.

Ubuntu TV’s success likely lie in its adoption by more tech-minded consumers who enjoy using Linux-based operating systems. Most consumers will gravitate towards big names like Apple and Google for their familiarity and ease of use when choosing an Internet TV. I, for one, am excited about the possibility of a Linux-based TV; excuse me for a second while I geek out.

You might want to hold back on that $600 Mac Mini purchase for just a little bit longer. The Raspberry Pi, the little $25 computer that can run Quake 3 Arena and play HD videos, is scheduled to go into volume production in January. If you want to splurge, you can also pay a $10 premium for the fancy Model B that comes with an ethernet port and 256 – instead of 128 – MByte RAM.

In a new blog post, the developers report that the first finished circuit boards have arrived. “They’re undergoing electrical testing alongside hardware and software testing at the moment, and if all goes well, the Raspberry Pi you’ll be buying in January (or by auction later this month if they all work as they should) will be exactly like one of these.”, says Raspberry Pi blog editor Liz Upton.

The Raspberry Pi has grown in size since the last time we reported on it. An early prototype resembled a USB flash drive, but the new board is about as wide as two credit cards side by side. The Linux operating system runs from a SD card  The computer also has a USB-out port that lets owners plug in a keyboard, and an HDMI-out port that can connect to an HDMI-enabled television or monitor.

The $25 computer looks as bare bones as it gets, but its ARM11 CPU operating at 700 MHz seems quite capable of playing 1080p HD video.

The Raspberry Pi is the brainchild of engineer Eben Upton and British programmer David Braben, who co-created the pioneering 3D open-world game Elite. Their goal is to manufacture a computer that is so inexpensive that every student can be given one. Braben himself got started on computers as a student. His Elite game was created on Acorn’s BBC Micro, the most common computer at British schools in the mid-1980s. Braben is also the founder of Frontier Developments, the studio that created the virtual animal simulation Kinectimals for Microsoft.

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Early Bird Tickets on Sale

Soon Ubuntu Linux won’t just be a desktop OS for Linux nerds.

Canonical, the company behind Ubuntu, is now aiming to mimic iOS and Android by bringing the OS to smartphones, tablets, and smart TVs, reports ZDNet. Canonical founder Mark Shuttleworth will be announcing the news today at the Ubuntu Developer Summit in Orlando, Florida.

“This is a natural expansion of our idea [of] Ubuntu as Linux for human beings,” Shuttleworth said in an interview with ZDNet. “As people have moved from desktop to new form factors for computing, it’s important for us to reach out to [the] community on these platforms. So, we’ll embrace the challenge of how to use Ubuntu on smartphones, tablets and smart-screens.”

The move makes sense for Ubuntu, which is one of the few Linux distributions to focus on design and wide consumer appeal. For those not familiar with Ubuntu, it has spent years positioning itself as the friendly Linux distribution that’s as easy to use as Mac OSX and Windows. But with Android and iOS having a major head start in all of the above device categories, it’s going to be difficult for Canonical to compete.

The company will finish work on the latest version of Ubuntu, 12.04, as well as its new Unity interface, before it starts work on expanding the software to more devices, ZDNet reports.

And while it seems like Canonical is taking inspiration from Android and iOS, moving Ubuntu to mobile platforms also seems reminiscent of what Microsoft is doing with Windows 8, which is aiming to be both a killer desktop and tablet experience.

When asked how Ubuntu can be competitive when facing more entrenched rivals, Shuttleworth said, “The device world is highly competitive and highly dynamic, while Android and iOS dominate handheld devices, disruptive elements could still establish themselves … Ubuntu and Windows can still be a real force.”

ZDNet figures we likely won’t see any Ubuntu tablets until the middle of 2012, and it will likely take even longer than that before it finds its way to phones. But while I don’t doubt Canonical’s ability to expand Ubuntu to other platforms, I wonder if it’s something that consumers and device manufacturers will actually want. Next year will certainly be interesting for mobile device competition.

Screenshot via ZDNet

The Raspberry Pi computer is a single-board computer that’s capable of rendering video games like Quake 3 at a 1920-by-1080 pixel monitor resolution. The game cruises along at around 20 frames per second with the lighting and geometrical details cranked up to maximum quality. It’s also running at a 1920-by-1080 pixel resolution, which brought the frame rate down slightly, Raspberry Pi foundation’s Eben Upton said. Considering the limited horsepower on the Pi, it’s still pretty impressive.

The computer has a 700-megahertz ARM processor and 128 megabytes of RAM. That’s about half as much memory as most smartphones today, which also sport processors that usually clock in at around 1 gigahertz. That makes it slightly weaker than a smartphone. There’s an SD card slot on the device that handles any storage, and it can output video and other images at 1080p resolution. It has a USB-out port that lets owners plug in a keyboard, and an HDMI-out port that can connect to an HDMI-enabled television or monitor.

(It’s also tiny — you can see it just under the monitor in the picture above.)

The Quake 3 version running is an open-sourced version of the game compiled for the Pi’s Linux build. The Pi sports a version of Linux, an open-sourced operating system that has become increasingly popular in philanthropic causes like this because it’s free to install and distribute. Braben said earlier he hopes the computer will be available to the public sometime later this year.

You can check out a full video of the demo below.

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July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Early Bird Tickets on Sale

Game developer David Braben has created a computer that’s about the size of a flash drive — and it’ll most likely cost less than your last date.

Braben designed the device with the goal of having an extremely affordable computer that children across the world can access. It’s a similar goal the OLPC (One Laptop Per Child) project had — create an extremely affordable computer that children in both developing countries and first-world countries can get their hands on.

The device sports a version of Linux, an open-sourced operating system that has become increasingly popular in philanthropic causes like this because it’s free to install and distribute. It will likely ship with some variation of Ubuntu, a very popular Linux distribution that has a huge development community, according to tech news site Geek.com.

“In theory, they could be given away to the child. There would be other ways of funding it,” Braben said in an interview with BBC. “They would be able to engage with a lot of things that we are all consumers of but not necessarily creators of — understanding how you put together little scripts that might run on websites and filters.”

The device has a 700-megahertz ARM processor and 128 megabytes of RAM. To put that in perspective, that’s about half as much memory as most smartphones today, which also sport processors that usually clock in at around 1 gigahertz. So it’s slightly weaker than a smartphone. There’s an SD card slot on the device that handles any storage, and it can output video and other images at 1080p resolution. It has a USB-out port that lets owners plug in a keyboard and an HDMI-out port that can connect to an HDMI-enabled television or monitor.

Braben said he hopes the device will be available to the public in around a year. Based on the components, the device will cost somewhere between £10 and £15, or around $25. It will be distributed through a charitable organization called the Raspberry Pi Foundation to promote computer science in schools.