Archive for October, 2010

Gerry Carr

Unity and uTouch

October 14th, 2010 by Gerry Carr
Categories: Desktop, Netbook, open source, Uncategorized
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One of the most exciting things about the Ubuntu 10.10 release has been the delivery of the Unity ‘shell’ in Ubuntu Netbook Edition. For the uninitiated,  this delivers a very different user experience to that in the main desktop edition. For a start the icons of the most popular applications are permanently featured on the left-hand side of the screen. This borrows more from the smartphone interfaces but is adapted for use on, in this case, netbooks. So there remains a workspace where users still have sufficient room to watch video, edit photos, create documents, play games, read the web, write emails – all of the usual tasks we use a computer for, day to day.

Everything is optimised however for the more limited screen space. It is sub-optimal for instance to simply port an interface from the full-screen world, shrink it and expect it to be a great experience. Unity does away with the bottom bar for example that Windows, Ubuntu and Mac users will be used to. This is actually a radical step, but in my experience at least, it takes no time at all to forget that there ever was a bottom bar. The result is considerably more ‘vertical space’ for to use  – again maximising the useful area on limited screen sizes.

One of the coolest things though is one that will be experienced by the fewest people at this point – touch. Unity is fully touch-enabled – those big icons are screaming out to have a digit poked at them. But as ever, the boys in the lab, or in this case Duncan McGregor‘s  multi-touch team have gone a step further and created a multi-touch ‘gesture’ library. This allows finger combinations to do groovy things like expand and reduce windows, pull up multiple windows in one workspace, and call up the ‘dash’ automatically. These are in 10.10. In 11.04 we will see a lot more.

Because there are a very limited number of touch-enabled devices out there at present, we thought we would create a video to show some of the features. You can see it below. It has turned out rather nicely even with the clumsy paws.

Gerry Carr, Platform Marketing, Canonical

Cezzaine Haigh

The Ubuntu community contributes towards saving the Iberian Lynx

October 7th, 2010 by Cezzaine Haigh
Categories: Canonical News, open source
1 Comment

With only three days until Ubuntu 10.10 (a.k.a Maverick Meerkat) is released and available to the world, it seems quite possible that Ubuntu’s 10.04 LTS (a.k.a Lucid Lynx) distribution will seem like a thing of the past.

If we cast our minds back, to about 6 months ago, we recall that one of the features of the Ubuntu 10.04 LTS Desktop Edition was the addition of the Ubuntu One Music store. Music from the world’s largest labels and most popular artists can be bought directly from the Ubuntu One Music Store and stored in Ubuntu One (your ‘personal cloud’).

Around the same time, Canonical announced that they would donate a percentage of sales (for songs) from the Ubuntu One Music Store, as well as from sales of the Lynx plushie toys available on the Ubuntu shop (to a maximum of US$1004) to the SOS Lynx charity in Portugal, to help save the Iberian Lynx. So thanks to your support, we’ve been able to make the contribution on behalf of the Ubuntu community.

The Iberian Lynx

The Iberian Lynx is the most endangered feline species in the world, as few as 220 individuals survive in the wild. The species was once widespread across the Iberian Peninsula but has declined drastically over recent decades, due to habitat loss, reductions in prey and high non-natural mortality from road kills, hunting and predator control.

Canonical got in touch with Dan Ward and Stephen Hugman from SOS Lynx to give them the positive news. They had the following to say:

“We (SOS Lynx) will shortly be releasing a research study on predator control and it’s impact on the Iberian Lynx. We have just prepared material in Portuguese for use in schools, as well as working with conservation groups in Portugal and Spain. We are focusing mainly on educational campaigns and research to raise awareness and support for the Iberian Lynx conservation in Spain, Portugal and across Europe.

Your very kind donation will contribute to funding education work for the Iberian Lynx and other predators with school children in southern Portugal. This work is essential to build long term support for the Iberian lynx and the wider nature conservation in the country. At present many people still have misunderstandings regarding the natural world – and the Iberian Lynx is still a hunted species. We hope education will help to change that.”

So, yay for Ubuntu!

For further information about the SOS Lynx foundation, the work they are doing, or to make a donation, please visit www.soslynx.org