Posted on 08/08/2013 5:46:49 PM PDT by sitetest
Bloomberg has become the first major corporate backer of the Ubuntu Edge, pledging $80,000 towards the project to build a crowdfunded smartphone, but this is unlikely to be enough to help Canonical reach its ambitious funding goal of $32 million (£20.8m).
Canonical says the pledge is a huge boost for the company and other backers who want to get their hands on the worlds first truly converged computing device, but at the time of writing, the Ubuntu Edge has achieved just $8,544,097 of its target with just 14 days of fund raising left.
Bloomberg has signed up for the Enterprise 100 perk which would give it 100 Ubuntu Edge smartphones as well as access to a range of workshops and technical support.
(Excerpt) Read more at http: ...
This is convergent technology. Your phone is your computer. One operating system. One set of applications. Data all in one place (backed up to the cloud, I hope, otherwise, everything is lost when you drop it down the toilet, LOL).
The smartphone, when built, will plug into a regular desktop monitor via HDMI and will support a bluetooth mouse and keyboard. 4GB RAM, 128GB solid state storage, multi-core processor.
Sapphire crystal display (I have this on my watch - it's just about unscratchable.).
I found it interesting that Bloomberg was willing to back this.
Ping to some possibly-interested parties.
Ping to tech list?
Ubuntu recently became rather too busy with extra daemons, signals and graphic kicks for my purposes. Some of us tend to drift back to using more secure and minimal systems from time to time. Ubuntu is okay, though, for most folks wanting to use more popular gadgets without having to port systems to newer gadgets themselves.
I like the earlier *buntus myself. Lucid Lynx Kubuntu is good. Yeah, an option to lighter graphics would be appreciated! Some smaller machines do not treat the busy-ness very well.
$80K from a billionaire is not “I like this idea and I want in” it sounds more like “Eh, that’s interesting”
Dear GeronL,
Actually, it was Bloomberg LP the company that owns BusinessWeek, that made the commitment to acquire 100 of these devices.
The CIO is into open source and convergent mobile/computing technologies.
sitetest
This was corporate Bloomberg, not Bloomie.
He could have spent the money to help get rid of the bed bugs.
OK, thanks for the information
I use Ubuntu on my laptop, btw
For more info on the campaign to crowdfund the Ubuntu Edge smartphone, here’s a link:
Www.indiegogo.com/projects/ubuntu-edge
I think that’s the link .
I enjoyed the earlier versions, too. By the way, OpenBSD and NetBSD are good choices for those looking for more stability and security.
Canonical/Ubuntu is not on the list. *bump* |
As someone who hauls around enough mobile computing hardware already, I wish someone would make a sensible modern phone that just makes phone calls and does that well. Think “iPhone Nano”. Modern dumbphones suck, and I don’t need another smartphone.
From my perspective, it’s my smartphone that makes it so I can haul less stuff around, most days. My phone actually makes phone calls pretty well. It seldom drops calls, coverage seems pretty good and pretty universal, at least within the continental US.
But in addition to doing a good job with phone calls, it enables me to get my e-mail wherever I am (which is important to me), and even gives me the ability to view the Internet from just about anywhere, although doing much actual computer work on the thing is very limited. The phone just isn’t powerful enough, and it’s a pain to use the tiny little virtual keyboard, and it’s a pain use the tiny screen for any real detail work.
And then, there are sometimes syncing issues between the e-mail client on my phone and on my computer on my desk. And any work that I actually DO manage to do on the phone isn’t automatically on my regular computer.
That’s why I like the idea of convergence. Your phone is your desktop PC is your laptop. One device, three functions.
But my phone does do phone calls well.
sitetest
Been using a lot of CentOS these days. 6.4 is pretty solid.
If i want bling, Fedora works fine.
That works fine for you.
I’m referring to those of us who carry tablets everywhere - no need to carry a functionally identical device (just smaller) just for making calls, when a sell designed slim device interacting & complementing the tablet would be preferred and cheaper.
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