Ubuntu

When Microsoft revealed its vision of Windows 10 Continuum applied on smartphones, it sounded almost like a dream. Imagine being able to use the same apps on the same device, but customized and optimized to fit in whatever display size is being used at the moment. But to those who have been watching the smartphone industry for quite a while, that dream might sound familiar. That's because Canonical, the company behind the popular Linux distribution Ubuntu, made that same spiel almost two years ago and it seems it won't be giving up just because Microsoft beat it to the punch.

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The promise of a smartphone powered by Ubuntu, one of the most popular Linux distributions, is quite an old one but it seems that 2015 is finally the year when it all takes flesh. First among the promised batch of Ubuntu phones, bq unveiled its Ubuntu-flavored Aquaris E4.5 at MWC 2015 last February. Now that very same device is available for purchase, but limited only to the European Union. Late to the market and limited availability, Canonical, the company behind Ubuntu, might have an even harder time breaking into the space than, say, Firefox OS.

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When Dell unveiled its next generation XPS ultrabooks at CES early this year, we were quite impressed. The slim, lightweight, and pixel-dense computing workhorse checked off all the items of an ideal spec sheet and enclosed it in a rather stylish body. But while that has been a great thing for consumers, Dell understood that developers want something just as powerful, or maybe even more. That's why it's putting out the XPS 13 Developer Edition, taking in those same juicy specs and slapping Ubuntu onto it for good measure.

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This year might be a year for modular mobile devices. Or at least the attempt to market these things. On the smartphone front, we have a lot of them, including Project Ara, Phonebloks, and PuzzlePhone. You even have laptops with OLPC Australia's upcoming XO-Infinity. Now even tablets are getting their chance too, with a limited edition Click-ARM One tablet which tries to deliver that modular tablet promise, but in a slightly different, and perhaps less convenient way that these other projects often try to sell.

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We knew that Ubuntu Phones were coming from Spain's bq and China's Meizu, so the only question really was "when?". With bq revealing the Aquaris E4.5 early this month, it was only a matter of time before others followed suit. It seems that Meizu will be taking advantage of MWC next week to do just that. It has just "teased" over at its Twitter account a Meizu MX4 that, without a sliver of a doubt, is running Ubuntu Phone instead of its own custom Android ROM.

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The Ubuntu device you're about to see goes by the name Aquaris E4.5 Ubuntu edition, and it isn't going to be like your average iPhone or Android. Instead, so it's being presented by Canonical as, this device will make quick work of your day-to-day needs with "Scopes" - also known as cards. The first Ubuntu phone for the public will make use of this first market-ready version of Ubuntu for mobile devices and will pose the following question to the public: Do you really need apps in the first place?

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The smartphone space is about to get more crowded, with the first Ubuntu phone, the Aquaris E4.5 Ubuntu Edition, hoping to muscle in among Android, iOS, and Windows Phone. Targeting the midrange market that so far Android has cavorted significantly in, BQ's new phone has a 4.5-inch screen, dual SIM support, and both an 8-megapixel camera on the back and a 5-megapixel camera up-front. More important than the hardware, though, is the new software, which Ubuntu claims is more content-centric than rival platforms. That's built around what Ubuntu has dubbed Scopes, a new take on the mobile UI.

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Linux is making another play for the Internet of Things, with Ubuntu figuring that as devices from thermostats through home hubs to personal robots and drones get smarter, they'll need a more flexible brain. Snappy Ubuntu Core is the latest platform for smart devices, promising gadgets that run exactly the same software whether locally or relying on the cloud, and thus bypassing questions about whether users are regularly upgrading, if old firmware is still in the wild, and where apps are going to come from. While Ubuntu clearly isn't alone in its IoT ambitions, Ubuntu Core does at least have an advantage some rival schemes don't: it already has users.

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There’s an undercurrent at this year’s CES that’s hard to ignore: Intel. The company is making some subtle inroads to arenas we’re not used to seeing them, their most notable non-PC showing in Dell’s interesting new Venue 8 7000 tablet. Now, the company is taking PC mobile, allowing you to take a full-fledged operating system in the form of an HDMI dongle. The Compute Stick carries an Intel Atom processor, and will be available with either a Windows or Linux OS.

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It seems that Samsung isn't the only one experiencing delays in getting a new player in the mobile market out of the woodwork. Canonical, the commercial company behind the open source Linux-based Ubuntu OS has been quoted to have said that its much-hyped Ubuntu Phone won't be announced until early 2015. And that's just the announcement of the availability and not the availability itself, which can, of course, be delayed repeatedly, as Samsung's dance with its own Tizen OS has proven.

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Native Netflix support on Linux has been a long-running wish among users, and though methods have been around to get the service to work, none were as simple as firing up your browser and getting right into the movies, no hassle necessary. Last month news that a change was afoot surfaced, with Netflix's Paul Adolph asking questions and saying that, if certain wheels could be put in motion, he'd bring up a case for nixing the user agent filtering that foiled users.

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Back in February, Canonical promised that its phone-centric Ubuntu Touch will be making its way to actual retail smartphones later this year. But Canonical promises many things and with the year coming to a close, it seems that that promise might either be delayed or, worse, broken entirely. But behold, a device bearing the likeness of the Meizu MX4 but also bearing within it Ubuntu's mobile OS has just been spotted, fanning the flames of hope of a still possible Ubuntu phone soon.

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