Update at the end of 24 hours, 3.4 million and some change committed.

>1/10th of the dollars in 1/30th of the days ....


He needs to drop the amount some towards the end of the 30 days so the little guys can play some too, right now he's just asking the rich people to kick in some of their loose Hamptons golfing outing funds.


If he's just trying to get the big telecom's attention, I think he may have already done that .....

I know he's given Ballmer a severe colonic spasm because Ballmer can just see all his future sales of PC operating systems turning into free OS cell phones right in front of his eyes .....            

     Ballmer, that's gonna happen anyway -- you've just been living in willful denial for the last year or so.   Why don't you just bluster some for us and issue a statement saying that you already invented that ....

A dockable smart phone.....now that IS promising. Fastest processor + 128 gigs of storage/w 4gigs of ram, its a frikin' mini-computer. Now doc that with a 500gig mini solid state drive and a monitor and keyboard and you have yourself a nice system. Upload what you want for the day/week and dump it when you get home.
This does sound good for future system, now if they would make a tv that will wirelessly act as a monitor THAT I would do. Right now I can wirelessly use it as a photoviewer but not as a wireless monitor. But maybe i'm just not doing it right.
I can see coming home at the end of the day, docking your phone, turning on the tv, and searching the net and or surfing the channels and recording a certain program, then watching the program the next day at work on your phone, at break time of course!
The day has come for my dream HOME system.... a 80" tv/computer/phone/video conference system that's all docked from your handheld device, and with the upcoming flexable led screens, could be a wrist or arm bracelet....hmmm

5.5 million raised in 3 days (if the current rate holds up he does the deal inside 13 days)

The buzz is the price will keep dropping the bigger the commit numbers get to be, and as long as Shuttleworth instantly drops your pledge to the latest real number it does sorta give folks a nudge to go ahead and commit now as the numbers only get better automatically.

Still,  if his pledges hold up anywhere near this rate he's got him a deal.

Expect marketing updates and vendor input discussions to add spice to the mix periodically, just to keep the buzz going.  

Also expect Shuttleworth to accidentally "out" some new phone components periodically that are actually in the works -- that sapphire touch surface is one that is out on the table now but the actual vendor hasn't announced it yet.   Vendor needs to come out of the closet ....  

That special battery is out on the table too -- vendor needs to step up on that one too.

Hey low light camera dudes, speak up !!

Actually, by the time May of next year rolls around I bet you can buy a standard phone that can do all these tricks since people now know about them and want them all the good phones will have them in there.

Great move, they don't want to build you a phone with enough specs,  so, oops,  now all the good phones will have to be built that way.


Microsoft and Intel could do this -- but I shudder to see the price tag.

you probably already know this...

http://news.yahoo.com/googles-chromecast-other-tv-devices-dont-175514986.html

Editorials on why you shouldn't buy into the Edge have begun to run on Windows fan sites and general computing publications.

Seriously, the most compelling arguments that they make is that with your existing phone and an Android Tablet and a wireless keyboard you are "totally equipped" to do work anywhere and "anywhere" simply doesn't have a docking station/monitor just sitting there ready for you to plug your Edge into.

This is a real and valid point.   +1 for them

The most specious arguments from the Microsoft fans are based on saying it would take an Intel I-3xx chipset to do what has been promised by Shuttleworth, that a Qualcomm 800 can't swing it and neither can a Samsung Octa type 2.   This is a false argument based on a wrong "windows is the world" perspective.

They totally fail to grasp the point that it would take an I-3xx chipset to do it for Win 7 or Win 8 BUT NOT FOR UBUNTU since it is much lighter and skinnier on the resource required front.

And they willfully forget that the man making that promise MAKES the durn distro and he has been working on that particular LTS release for a while now on current phones and tablets and certainly knows if it will run well or not because he is running it on Tegra 3's right now.


=============


A few pundits have actually written short articles driving a stake in the sand saying "Here begins the final chapter of the PC, it has been shrinking for a while, but this signals the start of the final decline."

These guys point out that there are more TABLETS out there now than PC's in total, counting all of the PCs that are still running.    And that tablets are still selling on an increasing scale while PC sales are sloping down radically.   They don't even bother to count in the phones as there are a bijillion times more phones out there.



===============



Will Shuttleworth build his Edge?    

Perhaps not --- but do you think that the general idea hasn't suddenly become something that R&D departments haven't been directed to check into?   APPLE, Microsoft, Intel -- the Edge has cut deep into the popular thought patterns of their customers.

Let me give you a clue as to what has changed from the FAR EAST perspective.    

Ubuntu was a desktop operating system that was put on old PCs and all the new boxes and the little stuff being built with ARM chipsets ran Android first and only.   The orient LIKED Android, and didn't see Ubuntu as something they desired very much.   Sorta outside their realm, in other words.   Something for rich Europeans and Americans.

Look what popped up in the last few days ....



Rikomagic UK to offer Minix Linux ARM PCs
(MK802 III LE, MK802 IV LE)


http://liliputing.com/2013/07/rikomagic-uk-to-offer-minix-linux-arm-pcs-mk802...

Rikomagic UK to offer Minix Linux ARM PCs
(MK802 III LE, MK802 IV LE)

It looks like it may be time to stop calling tiny ARM-based devices like the MK802 Android TV sticks and go back to calling them mini PCs. Rikomagic UK has announced it will start shipping Linux Editions of two of its most recent ARM-powered stick-sized computers.

The MK802 III LE (Linux Edition) and MK802 IV LE will both run a custom version of Ubuntu called Picuntu, and they’ll be available from the Cloudsto store soon."




Folks who buy these little non-optimal items will just see how well that Ubuntu runs on that small wee bitty hardware, then they can just imagine what it could do if it were hand tuned by the Shuttleworth and all his minions to exactly fit a particular current generation 2.3 ghz quad core superchip.

With 4 gigs of system memory.  

And a 128 gig electronic hard drive for speed.


I don't think the Edge would be slow .... quite the contrary.


You know Shuttleworth has some prototypes that he has built -- you know he's been given Snapdragon 800 phones and Samsung Octa II pre-production phones to play with.   Do you realize how little it would take to modify the I/O jacks of the current Samsung and Snapdragon 800 phones to do Shuttleworth's docking magic on a stock next gen Superphone?   Especially this way way early in the design cycle of those super phones?

Even if the Edge is never built, by next summer there will be a few docking stationed phones running the 14.04 LTS version of Ubuntu.

Because they can, with no real increase in cost beyond a better I/O jack.   Because it is a product differentiating selling point that allows the sale of a docking station accessory.  Because most of China and the Far East has zero interest in making big box PCs because they don't use them at home.

But they do make phones and they do have HDMI equipped TVs.  

What if Google took their $35 dongle and gave it a receptor so it recognized all wireless keyboards and mice and provided software on line so you could have your "PC" instantly in any hotel room or board room?

(they already do that, you know)



Chrome Dongle is extension of Chrome Box is an extension of Google Play.

Justin, I had cell phones all along that were "feature phones" -- basic things that allowed you to make a phone call.

I worked with people with smart phones and I noticed them using them to go on the internet and all -- neat but not necessary to my way of thinking.

Wife got a tablet and then we got current gen 5" Android 4.2 phones -- nice stuff there.   My old white box has nothing on the phone, really.  Functionality and speed are quite similar.   I can talk in a post quicker than I can text it, which is really neat that my phone talks to me and listens to me.   Plus mine is a darn fine GPS unit, plays movies, lets me play games ...... neat stuff that you can put in yer pocket.

White boxes are no more -- go to Best Buy and they sell around 5 box types, period.   Tons of laptops and tablets though -- and the store devotes more actual floor space to cell phones than to computers any more.


Convergence    

It is Shuttleworth's term he invented just this past year.   It means "exact same software platform on all devices" and Microsoft picked up on it and gave it a fudgy sort of try this past year.   You can get "windows" on each sort of device but actually the phone and tablet versions are really completely different sorts of stuff that won't even run the same basic software packages.

Apple is the same way -- their stuff is different per platform too.

14.04 Ubuntu will be the first convergent operating system -- it will run on PCs, tablets and phones -- same same OS and all the same software.

This brought up the bright idea of "why not dock the phone or the tablet and have the full PC experience right off the portable device?"   Why have to spend money on a box, a tablet and a phone?

Brave new thoughts that you will see become actual in April, 2014.

I think I agree with the stake in the sand pundits -- April, 2014 Ubuntu LTS (6 year supported versions are the Long Term Support versions) will see movement in business and with folk's personal hardware towards convergence.   White boxes will become relatively unnecessary, monitors and keyboards will remain on your desk as always.

You might like Mac, but you will want convergence.   Mac can give it to you if you want it enough to PAY a bunch to get it.

You may like Windows, you are shite out of luck for convergence there because they totally flopped on 2 of the 3 parts of it already.   With 6 million units sitting in warehouses that will not sell Microsoft isn't going anywhere without rewriting their software COMPLETELY to be truly convergent.   They can't figure out how to do that with their old stuff -- and folks don't want the mish-mash of incompatible differences any more.

Ubuntu

Shuttleworth is going to give you convergence and open-ness and it won't even cost you a lot of extra money if you buy your next smart phone carefully off the selected ones from the top of the heap that have the Ubuntu docking station accessory built for them.   OS and software is free, all of it.  

And Ubuntu works arguably better than MS products in that you don't have to defend yourself from virus and trojan attacks all the time.  And you never have to defrag your hard drive using Linux, ever.


=================


Microsoft

Microsoft has got to give up on being stupid and autocratic if they want to sell anything going into the future -- they have 6 MILLION unsold Surface tablets that they just paid $900,000,000 to partially depreciate because they had to cut the price by 1/3 (and still nobody is buying them as being "Built by Microsoft" a key feature of the hardware is you can't swap out the operating system).

Can Microsoft re-create both their business and their current worldwide image as an autocratic school bully?

They spent 40 years creating their distinctive corporate culture, me, I don't think they are going to turn that around on a dime.

No one would trust them or believe them if they said they had become "open and cooperative".  Too many of the existing players in open source hate their guts (with fairly substantive reasons).  Too many of their old business partners carry visible scars from having "partnered" with them.

Ballmer is still there -- nothing has changed -- nothing real, nothing basic.  

 Trying to put on a sheepskin isn't going to fool anybody, Mr. Wolf.

justin_o_guy2 wrote on 07/27/13 at 04:11:53: