Ubuntu TV unveiled (PC Pro)
[Jane] Silber told us Canonical was in discussions with a number of television manufacturers, but couldn't confirm any signed deals. It will face stiff competition from Google - which only last week added LG to its roster of Google TV manufacturers - and Apple, which is widely tipped to be working on an internet television after making little impact with successive generations of its Apple TV hardware."
Posted Jan 9, 2012 15:16 UTC (Mon)
by oliwarner (subscriber, #81320)
[Link] (17 responses)
- Google makes money from the deployments of Android through media/app purchases so I wouldn't be surprised if they can't pay fabs to push Android onto Smart TVs.
- By comparison Canonical has a tiny app store, aimed exclusively at the x86 market (surely the TV will be ARM7+) and no video streaming/rental money.
I can't see how they're going to compete unless they can make the software and overall experience and convenience so much better. That's going to take more than a pretty EPG and film listing.
Posted Jan 9, 2012 15:23 UTC (Mon)
by kragilkragil2 (guest, #76172)
[Link] (3 responses)
Anyways, where is the code? Is this another Ubuntu-labeled closed source product?
Posted Jan 9, 2012 15:49 UTC (Mon)
by job (guest, #670)
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Posted Jan 9, 2012 17:03 UTC (Mon)
by sladen (guest, #27402)
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Posted Jan 13, 2012 1:33 UTC (Fri)
by nix (subscriber, #2304)
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Posted Jan 9, 2012 16:08 UTC (Mon)
by Kit (guest, #55925)
[Link] (6 responses)
Posted Jan 9, 2012 16:11 UTC (Mon)
by Kit (guest, #55925)
[Link] (2 responses)
Posted Jan 9, 2012 17:29 UTC (Mon)
by drag (guest, #31333)
[Link] (1 responses)
It would be hilarious though if XBMC did manage to get OEM support.
Posted Jan 9, 2012 18:02 UTC (Mon)
by khim (subscriber, #9252)
[Link]
It'll be called Google TV, like before. But perhaps now, with support from #1, #2 and without burden of Intel Atom and separate box it'll be accepted by market. I'm not sure what exactly Canonical plans to do...
Posted Jan 9, 2012 19:19 UTC (Mon)
by b7j0c (guest, #27559)
[Link] (2 responses)
this seems like an easy experiment for ubuntu, i can't imagine it required a major investment
Posted Jan 9, 2012 21:22 UTC (Mon)
by sladen (guest, #27402)
[Link] (1 responses)
Posted Jan 10, 2012 19:55 UTC (Tue)
by drag (guest, #31333)
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Posted Jan 9, 2012 17:30 UTC (Mon)
by arjan (subscriber, #36785)
[Link] (1 responses)
Posted Jan 13, 2012 18:40 UTC (Fri)
by wookey (guest, #5501)
[Link]
Debian builds for MIPS so Ubuntu could too if they wanted (but I don't think they do).
Posted Jan 9, 2012 23:56 UTC (Mon)
by andreasb (guest, #80258)
[Link] (3 responses)
I assume you mean ARMv7 which is the current ARM architecture specification. ARMvx denote architecture specifications, ARMy denote actual implementations with x and y not being related. Also, current implementations (by ARM Holdings themselves) are named Cortex instead of ARM.
Actual ARM7 cores (introduced in 1994) are mostly ARMv4, some implement ARMv3 and some ARMv5. They are still common in the ARM microcontroller world where they are currently being superseded by Cortex-M cores (implementations of ARMv7-M).
Alright alright, I'll stop lecturing now.
Posted Jan 9, 2012 23:58 UTC (Mon)
by oliwarner (subscriber, #81320)
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Posted Jan 10, 2012 0:27 UTC (Tue)
by dlang (guest, #313)
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Posted Jan 10, 2012 1:21 UTC (Tue)
by mgedmin (subscriber, #34497)
[Link]
No, no, go ahead, this is very interesting.
Posted Jan 10, 2012 8:16 UTC (Tue)
by AlexHudson (guest, #41828)
[Link] (4 responses)
If this were a serious effort, they would be at CES, where all the big players are showing off their products. This 'we have a repo' sideshow is sad. There's no novelty, no innovation, just a dream that they can succeed where others have failed.
This isn't hating on Canonical, this is just disappointment. The community needs them to succeed, but I worry how long they can be bankrolled at this burn rate....
Posted Jan 10, 2012 8:25 UTC (Tue)
by dlang (guest, #313)
[Link] (1 responses)
besides, are you sure they have no presence at CES?
Posted Jan 10, 2012 8:43 UTC (Tue)
by AlexHudson (guest, #41828)
[Link]
In terms of server Linux: sure, they have a recognised name. They haven't made it profitable yet though, which is what I would call a success.
Posted Jan 10, 2012 11:27 UTC (Tue)
by tpo (subscriber, #25713)
[Link] (1 responses)
For what it's worth I note that the NZZ, one of the biggest, most trustworthy and serious Swiss newspapers is mentioning Canonical's TV offering at the CES:
http://www.nzz.ch/nachrichten/digital/consumer_electronic...
-> Slide 6/13
*t
Posted Jan 12, 2012 17:23 UTC (Thu)
by dgm (subscriber, #49227)
[Link]
Not like the level of coverage that would (will?) have an Apple TV, but it's quite remarkable for a free OS.
Ubuntu TV unveiled (PC Pro)
Ubuntu TV unveiled (PC Pro)
I had a very quick glance and the launpad site has no more code. I read it was based on Qt/QML. I'd love to take a look.
It's all all open source, accessible through their Launchpad service. Looks promising, metadata scan with XBMC, GUI with the Qt-based Unity. I hope they find some solid hardware partners on this.
Ubuntu TV unveiled (PC Pro)
See you over on Freenode Ubuntu TV demo source code
#ubuntu-tv and have fun with the demo code! It's a fair point that the announcement and news pickups could have highlighted free software/open source/openness to a greater degree—this has been raised by other people too and very useful feedback. I think on this occasion people were working hard to make the deadline:
Ubuntu TV unveiled (PC Pro)
Neither Google nor Apple have made much progress in this market, despite already having large ecosystems backing them (plus the name recognition). Canonical has zero consumer name recognition (at least in most of the world, especially the US).Ubuntu TV unveiled (PC Pro)
Unless Canonical came someone really persuade the manufacturers to just throw it on a large number of their TVs, I don't see this ever going near the mainstream. Even if they don't charge anything for software, it will cost manufacturers money to actually design a TV with the necessary hardware and do the development, plus those TVs will be more expensive due to the extra hardware.
This seems like a major flop in the making. I'd be quite surprised if we see more than a couple expensive, small TVs from a very limited number of manufacturers running this (with zero retail availability and little coverage even by the tech press). Never know, Canonical might have some really good software for this thing (the Google TV experience leaves very much to be desired, with the sluggish and poorly thought out interface), and might just be in the right place at the right time.
Whoops! Should have proofread that before hitting submit!Ubuntu TV unveiled (PC Pro)
s/came someone/can somehow/
Ubuntu TV unveiled (PC Pro)
It's actually called "Google TV" and looks like Google finally does the right thing...
It's just that they are not going to call it 'Android TV' or anything like that. It's just TVs that run Android. :)
Ubuntu TV unveiled (PC Pro)
"Canonical has agreements in place with third parties and industry organisations to include codecs for common media formats."
Codec (patent) licensing
Codec (patent) licensing
Ubuntu TV unveiled (PC Pro)
Ubuntu TV unveiled (PC Pro)
Ubuntu TV unveiled (PC Pro)
Ubuntu TV unveiled (PC Pro)
Ubuntu TV unveiled (PC Pro)
Ubuntu TV unveiled (PC Pro)
Ubuntu TV unveiled (PC Pro)
Ubuntu TV unveiled (PC Pro)
Ubuntu TV unveiled (PC Pro)
Ubuntu TV unveiled (PC Pro)
> where all the big players are showing off their products
Ubuntu TV unveiled (PC Pro)