14 DAY TRIAL // Mark Canonical has announced that a pocket PC powered by Ubuntu will be released this year, but he has just teased about it and he hasn't revealed any additional details.
Users who were watching the Ubuntu Online Summit keynote from Mark Shuttleworth were surprised to hear about a mysterious pocket PC that will run the desktop flavor and that should be made available this year. Unfortunately, this is pretty much the amount of the information made available, but it was enough to get people talking.
"I'd like to announce that we are going to ship a device this year with a manufacturer, which will fit in your pocket, which will be a phone, and which will give you a desktop experience. So, that pocket PC experience is real on Ubuntu and while I enjoy the race I also like to win," said Mark Shuttleworth during the keynote speech.
It looks like the Ubuntu phone that turns into a PC lives on
Canonical presented a while back a piece of software called Ubuntu for Android. The user would connect their Android device to a desktop, mouse, and keyboard, and get the full desktop experience. Unfortunately, that didn't amount to anything, but the idea lived on.
In fact, Microsoft has just recently presented a similar idea, which has raised a few eyebrows. Now, Mark Shuttleworth is making a really important promise, as he is saying that we will be able to use a phone as a desktop PC this year.
This might not be a new product, as it might just be the natural result of the desktop and phone convergence. The fact that Ubuntu for phones and Ubuntu for desktops will soon share the same codebase is now a reality and it's getting really close to a stable release.
For now, we'll just have to watch very closely what Canonical is saying and maybe we'll catch a glimpse of that mysterious hardware maker.
