Ubuntu Teases Tablet Related Announcement For February 19th

We're only a few days away from the preview image of Ubuntu for phones going live, and a new countdown timer has shown up on the Canonical website. This one isn't as cryptic as the last (which tricked us because we didn't expect the announcement a year before the full release), exclaiming clearly "Tick, tock, tablet time!" So, it looks like Canonical is about to show off tomorrow the work done to make Ubuntu tablet-ready.

Canonical and all of the developers contributing to Ubuntu have been working on making Ubuntu tablet-ready since October. The early work has been done with the Nexus 7 as the reference device, and has focused on optimizing the OS to run on mobile processors, to be more efficient with memory, and more power efficient as well. A lot of these improvements have already found their way into Ubuntu 13.04, which is due in 2 months. The plan is to have Ubuntu be an all-in-one OS from phones to tablets to desktop in time for Ubuntu 14.04, due in April 2014. 

Source: Ubuntu

iOS 6.1 Untethered Jailbreak Now Available

The iOS 6/6.1 jailbreak was just released by the Evad3rs team. We already knew it was coming, yesterday morning for the iPhone, iPad and iPod touch this program was released. It looks like they met that promise, because you can now download the untethered jailbreak tool. It’s called “evasi0n,” specifically, and can be applied through Linux, OS X or a Windows-based machine (XP or higher).



Source: evasi0n

32GB HP TouchPad Available For $194.99

As you know the TouchPad didn’t exactly sell as planned, mostly due to what many viewed as an unjustifiably high price tag on an OS that just didn’t catch fire. It did however skyrocket into fame once fire sales began to burn through inventory and it was found that Android could be installed on the tablet.

While the new units are all gone, occasionally we see some refurbs out there still looking for a good home. Apparently woot! has gotten their hands on a lot, they are running a sale through their ‘hidden’ sister site, moofi.

They are selling the 32GB HP Touchpad for $194.99. The unit is refurbished, but comes with a 90-day warranty from HP. That’s about $50 higher than the original sale pricing, but if you’re looking for a webOS device or just want to play around with running Linux or Android on it, this is probably your best bet.

Get yours today by following the link, leave us a comment and let us know if you scored a HP Touchpad for $194.99.  

Already have a HP Touchpad? Leave us a comment and let us know what you like/dis-like about your HP Touchpad. 

Samsung Looks To Expand Tizen Offering

Samsung recently reported its second consecutive quarter of record earnings, thanks in no small part to its wildly popular line of Android-powered Galaxy smartphones. The South Korea-based vendor also just took the wraps off its next-generation flagship Android smartphone, the Galaxy S III. While the device may have opened the door for rivals to make some moves if they can act quickly enough, Samsung is currently the No.1 smartphone vendor in the world by volume and the Galaxy S III should help it retain that title. As good as Android has been for Samsung, however, the vendor continues to make it clear that it does not want to put all its eggs in one basket.

Samsung sells smartphones running its in-house Bada platform in the Asian region, and channel sales approached the 10 million-mark in 2011. The consumer electronics giant also said it is interested in making some acquisitions in the mobile space, and while RIM may not be on the table, the numerous software customizations seen on the upcoming Galaxy S III smartphone suggest that Samsung is looking to gain more control over the experience offered by its smartphones.

This past January, Samsung announced that it will be folding its Bada efforts into a new project headed by Intel. Tizen, an off-shoot of MeeGo, is an open-source smartphone platform based on Linux. While Samsung’s long-term goals with Tizen may be unclear, the company is working closely with Intel and it debuted a developer reference handset at the 2012 Tizen Developer Conference on Monday.

Check out the official Tizen website.

Canonical Releases Ubuntu 12.04 LTS

Ubuntu 12.04 LTS has landed today, offering enterprise users a secure and stable Linux operating system for their work environment. LTS stands for Long Term Support, with five years of guaranteed updates for the OS, as well as the option to purchase commercial support. The latest version of Ubuntu brings support for Microsoft’s Remote Desktop Protocol 7.1, plus desktop virtualization for Citrix and VMWare.


That gives enterprise users flexibility for office productivity. They can use desktop applications remotely, use browser-based solutions such as Google Docs, or use the pre-installed LibreOffice which is compatible with Microsoft Office formats. Canonical believe Ubuntu makes a good choice for those faced with expensive Windows 7 upgrades.

There’s also a new menu-based search option, tweaks to the login screen, but most importantly improved performance and power management. Ubuntu has suffered from draining batteries far too quickly in the past, and Canonical says they’re working to fix that with the newer versions of the OS.

What about if you’re running Ubuntu 10.04? Canonical say there will be an easy migration to 12.04, and that the company is looking forward for users to experience the upgrade for themselves. If you’re eager to get downloading, head on over to the Ubuntu website where you should find a torrent waiting for you.

Open webOS Build Scripts Sneak Out Onto GitHub

Build scripts for the desktop version of Open webOS have managed to sneak out onto the Github code repository belonging to webOS Engineering team member Anupam Kaul. Before you get too excited, these scripts don't actually do anything yet, primarily because the majority of the source code for Open webOS hasn't yet been released. The actual code to run the webOS UI and many other underlying components are't expected to be released until July. Still, it is interesting to see these build scripts come out at this time, given that Open webOS is not yet released in full and is very much a work in progress.

On the GitHub repository there are build scripts for db8, a component that manages certain types of application databases used throughout webOS and that was released in March, as well as build scripts for cjson, luna-service2, and pmloglib. Some of the components, namely luna-service2 which powers Node.js-based services, and pmloglib (which is responsible for on-device debugging logs), are webOS-specific components and are part of the Open webOS release plan. The remaining component, cjson, is a popular open source JSON library for C code required for many components of webOS.

We chatted briefly with Kaul about the project and he confirmed that this is a personal project of his, and that though these scripts along with the Linux Standard Kernel would help it booting webOS onto a desktop, there's still a lot of work that will have to be done with as-of-yet unreleased components to make webOS cursor-friendly. Until then, the code on GitHub is simply waiting for the day to come where it might be pushed out to the larger Open webOS project.

It's interesting to think back a year ago to Think Beyond, when HP first unveiled their plans to put webOS onto all of their computers by the end of this yar. My how times change. Although the practicality of using webOS on a computer is still debatable, we do look forward to the day when we can do just that. Until then, we have got no option but to sit and wait patiently.

Canonical Prepping To Launch Ubuntu As Smartphone OS

A recent job listing has revealed that an Ubuntu Phone OS is currently under development. Canonical, the major developer behind the Ubuntu OS, is seeking a Business Development Manager for its Ubuntu Phone OS project that will be responsible for establishing relationships with phone vendors and telecommunications companies to promote the platform.

This isn’t the first time that Canonical has attempted to adapt Ubuntu to smartphones. It had previously tried to push Ubuntu Mobile, which ended in 2009, as well as Kubuntu Mobile and an ARM version of Ubuntu. Fans of the platform have designed several concepts for a mobile Ubuntu OS, one of which designed by Musl1m is shown above.

Canonical has also backed the Ubuntu for Android project, which brought the desktop experience of Ubuntu to Android handsets. It runs both Android and Ubuntu simultaneously and was first demoed to be fully operational on the Motorola Atrix 4G 2 at Mobile World Congress last month. It’s believed that Ubuntu for Android can be run on any Android smartphone as long as it has video-out, a dual-core processor, and at least 1GB of RAM.

Motorola Plans To Turning Android Into A Desktop OS With Webtop 3.0

Can Android 4.0 replace a desktop PC? We have already examined that question, and now it appears Motorola believes the answer is yes. Their Droid RAZR is expected to see a software update to Android 4.0 as early as next week, which delivers a totally new Webtop experience.

Previously, Motorola’s Webtop software allowed a phone to plugin into a smart dock that launched a custom Linux desktop that featured Firefox for as the browser. We thought it was an innovative feature when it debuted at CES 2011, but the actual experience turned out to be pretty sluggish and frustrating.

We predicted that the Motorola Atrix 4G and Webtop software were a good indicator of where Android was headed, and now it appears that has come true.

A leaked copy of the Android 4.0 update for the Droid RAZR reveals a new “Webtop 3.0 beta” that does away with the limited Linux desktop and provides users with a full Android 4.0 tablet UI when a device is docked to a larger display.

I’m pretty excited to see that this different-UI-for-different-displays feature is finally coming to Android phones. Hopefully handset makers will enable it over HDMI, MHL, and eventually WiFi Display. Check out the YouTube video below, be sure to leave your comments.

Dropbox Offering 4.5GB Of Cloud Space To Desktop Bug Testers

If you’re an avid user of Dropbox and love to test out new builds of software for your favorite cloud storage service, today’s your lucky day. Dropbox is showing off their version 1.3.12 beta release of their desktop software, offering up to 500MB of photos and video (or space for whatever you like) at a time, with 500MB more free each time you fill your space up. This testing ground software download is entirely free to download and will have you checking out a bevy of new options with the program itself including imports from iPhone, imports from SD cards, and a cleanup of the Windows user interface!

When you do download this update to your Dropbox software for desktop machines, you should know that there are different versions for different Linux builds, but one version per system for Mac OS X and Windows. Dropbox also warns users that they should make backup sets of files while using this update specifically as this testing sequence is in place to test out stability primarily. Those of you updating in the future when the beta is over should have nothing to worry about.

This update will bring you 500MB of free space when you hit the automatic upload option, then 500MB more each time you hit the limit up to 4.5GB more total. This version fixes an infinite restart of Dropbox when the database is corrupted, an import error for iPhone, handles your quota issues on first import more effectively, and has a lovely set of smaller bug fixes. The 1.3 import’s biggest changes are the allowance of batch uploads and downloads of files and the importing of files from cameras, phones, and SD cards in a much more effective manner.

You can download your version of the software courtesy of David E from Dropbox in their community forums and don’t forget to heed the warnings! Nothing is truly free, do your duty!