ubuntu tablet

Last week, Canonical announced its tablets running the Ubuntu operating system. It chose
the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona to show them off to the world.
Canonical today presented Ubuntu’s tablet interface – the next step towards one unified
family of experiences for personal computing on phones, tablets, PCs and TVs.
“Multi-tasking productivity meets elegance and rigorous security in our tablet experience,“
said Mark Shuttleworth, founder of Ubuntu and Canonical. “Our family of interfaces now
scales across all screens, so your phone can provide tablet, PC and TV experiences when
you dock it. That’s unique to Ubuntu and it’s the future of personal computing.”
“Fashion industry friends say the Ubuntu phone and tablet are the most beautiful interfaces
they’ve seen for touch” said Ivo Weevers, who leads the Canonical design team. “We’re
inspired by the twin goals of style and usability, and working with developers who are
motivated to create the best possible experience for friends, family and industry.”
The new tablet design doesn’t just raise the bar for elegant presentation, it breaks new
ground in design and engineering, featuring:
• Unique ‘side stage’ multi-tasking puts phone and tablet apps on a single tablet screen
• Secure enterprise tablets with full disk encryption, multiple secure user accounts and
standard management tool that covers Ubuntu server, PC and touch
• Unique convergence across all four form factors: a phone can provide tablet, TV and PC
interfaces when docked to the appropriate screen / keyboard / remote
• Real multitasking: Uniquely, Ubuntu allows a phone app on the screen at the same time as
a tablet app. The Ubuntu side stage was invented both to enable efficient multitasking and
to improve the usability of phone apps on tablets.
• Secure multi-user: Multiple accounts on one tablet with full encryption for personal data,
combined with the trusted Ubuntu security model that is widely used in banks, governments
and sensitive environments, making it ideal for work and family use.
• Voice controlled HUD productivity: The Heads-Up Display, unique to Ubuntu, makes it fast
and easy to do complex things on touch devices, and transforms touch interfaces for rich
applications, bringing all the power of the PC to your tablet.
• Edge magic for cleaner apps: Screen edges are used for navigation between apps, settings
and controls. That makes for less clutter, more content, and sleeker hardware. No physical or
soft buttons are required. It’s pure touch elegance.
• Content focus: Media is neatly presented on the customisable home screen, which can
search hundreds of sources. Perfect for carriers and content owners that want to highlight
their own content, while still providing access to a global catalogue.
• Full convergence: The tablet interface is presented by exactly the same OS and code that
provides the phone, PC and TV interfaces, enabling true device convergence. Ubuntu is
uniquely designed to scale smoothly across all form factors.
The Ubuntu tablet interface supports screen sizes from 6” to 20” and resolutions from 100
to 450 PPI. “The tablet fits perfectly between phone and PC in the Ubuntu family” says Oren
Horev, lead designer for the Ubuntu tablet experience. “Not only do we integrate phone apps
in a distinctive way, we shift from tablet to PC very smoothly in convergence devices.”
On high end silicon, Ubuntu offers a full PC experience when the tablet is docked to a
keyboard, with access to remote Windows applications over standard protocols from
Microsoft, Citrix, VMware and Wyse. “An Ubuntu tablet is
a secure thin client that can be managed with the same tools as any Ubuntu server or
desktop,” said Stephane Verdy, who leads enterprise desktop and thin client products at
Canonical. “We are delighted to support partners on touch and mobile thin clients for the
enterprise market.”
Even without chipset-specific optimisation, Ubuntu performs beautifully on entry level
hardware. “Our four-year engagement with ARM has shaped Ubuntu for mobile” said Rick
Spencer, VP Ubuntu Engineering at Canonical. “We benefit from the huge number of
contributing developers who run Ubuntu every day, many of whom are moving to touch
devices as their primary development environment.” For silicon vendors, Ubuntu is
compatible with any Linux-oriented Board Support Package (BSP). This means Ubuntu is
easy to enable on most chipset designs that are currently running Android. Ubuntu and
Android are the two platforms enabled



source: gadget

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