Ubuntu for Android is imminent

Posted by Charbax – November 15, 2012
Category: Opinions, Ubuntu

An official Canonical YouTube channel released this video:

This can mean that Ubuntu for Android is imminent. They seem to suggest that consumers can soon choose Ubuntu support next time that they buy a smartphone.

Here are some of my questions about Ubuntu for Android:

– Does Canonical work only on specific exclusive hardware and chip makers? Is there some kind of exclusive partnership with a Samsung or other Smartphone/chip maker to optimize and fully hardware accelerate Ubuntu on Android for them?

– Does the PC/Laptop Docking happen through a standard MHL connector compatible with multiple designs/sizes of phones and tablets?

– Are most Android 5.0 phones going to be compatible with alternative OSes to boot on top of Android? Can we soon just download the 700mb Ubuntu app made on Android Native Development Kit (NDK) on Google Play Store (if our Android device is officially supported with full hardware acceleration) to activate the on-top-of-Android-boot functionality?

– Can Chrome OS on Android be available at the same time? How about Google TV on Android? My big guess for Android 5 is that this multi-OS strategy is going to be a deep new feature of the next Android release. Dock your next Android device and it can switch or boot on the external HD display any alternative Linux OS such as Chrome OS, Google TV, Ubuntu, and maybe even Windows RT.

Also watch my previous Ubuntu for Android videos:

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Charles Dickens on E Ink vs Tablets for reading outdoors

Posted by Charbax – November 14, 2012
Category: E-readers, Displays, E Ink

Here is http://www.eink.com/ereader_tale.html‘s official latest comedy video showing why we should all consider buying an eink e-reader, at least the crazy cheap $69 Kindle if you haven’t already and let’s get to some serious e-reading going on again if you aren’t already.

I’m looking forward to spend more time outdoors with devices with sunlight readable screens, reading more of the awesome ebooks that I haven’t read yet. I fill those up with the best of project http://gutenberg.org for free, and still looking for Google to fix http://books.google.com

By the way, I’m still very much looking forward to official Google Android support on E Ink, synchronize the Chrome browser on my Laptop, Tablet and Smartphone so that I can always continue reading articles, emails, blog posts, Google+ circles on the WiFi connected and automatically synchronized E Ink e-reader comfortably without a backlight.

Do you ever use your backlit smartphones, tablets or laptops to read your ebooks? I wouldn’t recommend it, even turning down the brightness of the backlight doesn’t come close to the experience of using a backlight-free, frontlit device for any serious reading indoors and outdoors.

Jon Masters of Red Hat talks about LEG Linaro Enterprise Group, porting Linux on the 64bit ARMv8

Posted by Charbax – November 13, 2012
Category: Servers, Exclusive videos, Ampere, ARM TechCon, Linaro Connect

Red Hat is working on getting Fedora Linux up and running on ARMv8, Jon Masters talks about LEG Linaro Enterprise Group and getting the full Fedora Linux stack to work on 64bit ARMv8 server hardware from now and during next year as 64bit ARMv8 hardware becomes available. AMD, AppliedMicro, Calxeda, Canonical, Cavium, Facebook, HP, Marvell and Red Hat join existing Linaro members ARM, HiSilicon, Samsung and ST-Ericsson to form new group focused on accelerating Linux development for ARM servers.

Solana Crawford of Goodsearch.com at Gigaom Roadmap #roadmapconf

Posted by Charbax – November 13, 2012
Category: Web, Exclusive videos, Gigaom Roadmap

Goodsearch.com donates 50% of all their Yahoo powered search and e-commerce revenue to charities. They have 200 thousand members, and 1.5 million monthly users. Thus far, Goodsearch has donated $9.3 Million to charities this way.

Katia Beauchamp of Birchbox.com, Dave Gilboa of WarbyParker.com at Gigaom Roadmap #roadmapconf

Posted by Charbax – November 13, 2012
Category: Web, Exclusive videos, Gigaom Roadmap

Birchbox delivers beauty products randomly in a box for a $20/month subscription. WarbyParker delivers boutique-quality, classically crafted eyewear at cheap price points.

Windows Phone 8 Review: HTC Windows Phone 8X

Posted by Charbax – November 13, 2012
Category: Exclusive videos, Gigaom Roadmap, Windows

My initial look at Windows Phone 8, asking what is new about it to Harry McCracken Technology Editor at Time.com (he wrote an article about one of the tablets I showed him the Eken VIA8850 based A70 tablet at http://techland.time.com/2012/11/07/a-50-not-really-windows-tablet/).

Kevin Krejci of Fujitsu Laboratories of America at Gigaom Roadmap #roadmapconf

Posted by Charbax – November 13, 2012
Category: Other, Exclusive videos, Gigaom Roadmap

Kevin Krejci of Fujitsu Laboratories of America talks about the latest developments in Mobile technologies out of Silicon Valley and how that is being used by Japanese technology giants like Fujitsu.

Dr. Joseph Turian, How to do AI, crowdsourcing information work for pay

Posted by Charbax – November 13, 2012
Category: Tradeshows, Exclusive videos, Gigaom Roadmap

Dr. Joseph Turian, President, Metaoptimize and Analyst, GigaOM Pro talks about using Crowd-Labor, getting machine applications that build on Human Intelligence.

You can watch his keynote presentation here:

LitMotors C-1, fully-electric, self-balancing, two-wheeled vehicle at Gigaom Roadmap #roadmapconf

Posted by Charbax – November 13, 2012
Category: Other, Exclusive videos, Gigaom Roadmap

LitMotors shows their new C-1, self-balancing two wheeled futuristic looking electric bike.

David Prager at Gigaom Roadmap #roadmapconf

Posted by Charbax – November 13, 2012
Category: Other, Exclusive videos, Gigaom Roadmap

David Prager, co-founder of Revision3 (recently sold to the Discovery Channel) is working on some new startup ideas.

Livefyre at Gigaom Roadmap #roadmapconf

Posted by Charbax – November 13, 2012
Category: Web, Exclusive videos, Gigaom Roadmap

Livefyre is an alternative to Disqus providing live blog, chat and comments for blogs and for use on the social web. This is the comment system recently used on Engadget for comments, by Techcrunch for their live blogging and they are talking to more blogs to integrate them.

The Open Company Map and T-Shirt at Gigaom Roadmap #roadmapconf

Posted by Charbax – November 13, 2012
Category: Other, Exclusive videos, Gigaom Roadmap

The Open Company is a startup about being transparent about the price of products, showing the conditions under which the products are made, how much the workers are getting paid, how many hours the workers work per week, how much it cost to make each product, how much for components, shipping etc. They are just a startup and consider expanding to add more products to their store.

Yves Behar at Gigaom Roadmap #roadmapconf

Posted by Charbax – November 7, 2012
Category: Wearables, Smartwatch, Exclusive videos, Gigaom Roadmap, OLPC

Yves Behar talks about wearable computing, the Ouya project on Kickstarter, the upcoming OLPC XO Tablet and more. Design has the power to educate, inform, change society and create new opportunities where none existed. And in an environment of connectivity, design has another aim: It wants to be free. Hear why from the designer that brought you the Jawbone headset, the open-source game console Ouya, and many other groundbreaking product designs.

You can also watch his discussion with Om Malik at Gigaom Roadmap here:

Stefan Olander shows Nike Fuel Band at Gigaom Roadmap #roadmapconf

Posted by Charbax – November 7, 2012
Category: Wearables, Smartwatch, Exclusive videos, Gigaom Roadmap

Connected gadgets attached to our bodies are enabling us to track and manage our physical routines, fitness plans and health functions.

Hear how design and data will deliver the quantified self. You can also watch the official discussion video here:

John Maeda talks about Creative Leadership at #roadmapconf

Posted by Charbax – November 7, 2012
Category: Other, Exclusive videos, Gigaom Roadmap

John Maeda pioneered computer-based visual art at the MIT Media Lab, and his work now appears in the Museum of Modern Art. As the head of the globally renowned Rhode Island School of Design, he is pushing the boundaries of expression, design, connected culture and leadership.

You can also watch his full keynote on “The intersection of art, design, data and leadership” here. In this talk we will learn what he sees as the important vectors of the future of design, leadership and connected culture.

Electric Scooter Rentals in San Francisco at Scootnetworks.com

Posted by Charbax – November 7, 2012
Category: Other, Exclusive videos, Gigaom Roadmap

$5/hour, $10 for a half day, $20 for a full day, people in San Francisco can rent an electric scooter at http://scootnetworks.com

Twit Studio Brick House Tour

Posted by Charbax – November 7, 2012
Category: Other, Exclusive videos, Opinions

Check out this tour with John Slanina, Lead Studio Engineer at Leo Laporte’s http://twit.tv Brick House studio, the worlds biggest independent technology news video podcasting studio.

ARM CEO Warren East Keynote at ARM Techcon 2012 video – official high quality version

Posted by Charbax – November 4, 2012
Category: ARM TechCon, ARM

A couple of days ago, I posted my version of the keynote recorded from my seat in the audience, but now, ARM’s official YouTube channel has posted the official high quality version with direct audio and large slides:

my version is here:

In the future, when I record my own videos of keynotes, I should try to get a direct audio feed from the system, I need to buy some good wireless microphone setup and plug that into my camera. I’ve heard of Sennheiser and Sony making decent wireless microphone systems, let me know if you have any good suggestion for which wireless microphone system I should buy, perhaps one with lapel microphone so that I can also use it more often when I video-blog, to have some better audio quality at conferences than just using my Sennheiser MKE400 shotgun microphone.

I’m in the San Francisco area until November 8th, so let me know in the comments if you have any suggestions for tech companies that I should try to video-blog at in the Silicon Valley. Of course it’d be awesome to video-blog with Google engineers in Mountain View about Chrome OS on ARM and Android, but I don’t know how to contact someone there who can say it’s ok for them to invite me. I’ll video-blog at the GigaOm Roadmap conference on November 5th. I still have a few ARM Techcon videos to post, so check back. Some new devices, RK3066 HDMI Stick with BT and audio-out mini-jack and i.MX6 Quad-core HDMI Stick are going to be added to the Members Store also imminently, so also check back if you’re interested in that.

AppliedMicro Shows ARM 64-bit X-Gene Server on a Chip Hardware and Software

Posted by Charbax – November 3, 2012
Category: Servers, Exclusive videos, Ampere, ARM TechCon, Ubuntu

Vinay Ravuri, Vice President and General Manager, Server Products at AppliedMicro gives an update on the 64bit ARM X-Gene Server Platform. At ARM Techcon 2012, AppliedMicro, ARM and several open-source software providers gave updates on their support of the ARM 64-bit X-Gene Server on a Chip Platform.

ARM Powered Chromebook by Samsung

Posted by Charbax – November 2, 2012
Category: Laptops, Exclusive videos, Samsung, ARM TechCon, Chrome OS

This is the most awesome device in the world. First Exynos5250 ARM Cortex-A15 Mali-T604 device on the market. I ordered 3 that I’ll hopefully receive tomorrow from Amazon, and that I can video-review over several videos in the days to come. I plan to use this ARM Cortex-A15 Powered Chromebook as my main laptop for all my video-blogging work going forward. I only use YouTube video editor anyway, and I expect to have my 2TB USB3 portable 2.5″ hard drives work quite fine to backup SD cards from the camera, I expect the USB Ethernet adapter to work fine, I expect the performance to be good enough also on a 720p or 1080p external 42″ HDTV as external monitor with external mouse and keyboard, I expect to find FTP support, and hopefully my favorite VPN service providers (especially when I need YouTube while in China) can also be used, perhaps there’s VPN support in extensions. I really look forward to see what performance and battery life optimizations can be made in the weeks and months to come. This isn’t big.LITTLE yet and the battery is ultra thin and light, but I still expect/wonder if this device can be optimized utilizing full Mali-T604 hardware acceleration to reach 10 hours battery life in the months to come.