Canonical, a company behind the Ubuntu project, recently announced a new product called Ubuntu for Android, that offers mobile device manufacturers and vendors to implant the Ubuntu desktop OS into Android devices so that the mobile system can be used as a fully functional desktop OS when users put their phones on a dock and connect their phone to monitor and input devices (keyboard, mouse, etc).
Ubuntu for Android is not an applications build for Android OS like we usually install via app market, nor 'The Ubuntu phone', but much more. It is an integration between the two OS using the same kernel and share same OS library (both are based on Linux) on ARM device (phone/tablet).
The concept is when a user carry the phone with her/him, it acts just like a normal Android smart phone. The special thing is when the user connect the phone to a desktop monitor complete with keyboard and mouse them Ubuntu OS boots and runs concurrently with Android. This allows for both mobile and desktop apps to run at the same time. While Ubuntu is running, user will still be able to access basically everything available on Android's resources like contacts, messages, email etc., including Android apps, and those are accessed and used on Ubuntu.
The scenario is where a user has an Android phone he/she use it normally like any other phone. When he/she plug it to a monitor at home or work or any other place, the user is running a full fledged Ubuntu complete with desktop applications like Chrome or Firefox browser, multimedia player, or a full-featured image editor application. At the same time, the user has all data on the phone in these applications thereby providing a seamless transfer.
Here is a video demonstrating the Ubuntu for Android in action.
UPDATE (2012-07-31):
A video originally embedded on this page has been removed by Youtube, so I update this page with a newer and better video, demonstrating Ubuntu for Android. Here it is:
For more informations, you can visit the Ubuntu website.
.
No comments:
Post a Comment