In line with Mark Shuttleworth's vision of “Ubuntu on all devices”, Canonical announced Ubuntu TV at the Consumer Electronics Show, in Las Vegas, yesterday.
Ubuntu TV is aimed at television manufacturers and takes the Unity interface of the Ubuntu operating system to smart televisions offering the integration of applications, online services and broadcast.
In November, Shuttleworth, the founder of Ubuntu and Canonical, said his vision for Ubuntu on all devices would be realised by 2014.
“By 14.04 LTS Ubuntu will power tablets, phones, TVs and smart screens from the car to the office kitchen, and it will connect those devices cleanly and seamlessly to the desktop, the server and the cloud,” said Shuttleworth.
According to Shuttleworth, the current Ubuntu 11.10 desktop interface, called Unity, was designed with the idea in mind of creating coherence across devices.
“This was the origin of the name Unity - a single core interface framework that scales across all screens, and supports all toolkits.”
Integration
Speaking of Ubuntu TV, Canonical says: “Viewers want entertainment, not electronics. They want to relax and enjoy the movie, not juggle remote controls. Beautiful simplicity is the driving force behind Ubuntu TV.
“It integrates broadcast, time shift, online box office, personal cloud, apps and disk media experiences - all without wires, connectors or more boxes. It really is just the TV.”
According to Canonical, Ubuntu One is built in to the Ubuntu TV, so photos and videos from any supported device can be streamed to the screen.
“Personal videos can be streamed straight from the cloud to the TV, as can slide shows of holiday photos.”
Canonical adds: “A key TV trend is the second-screen experience, in which viewers seek more information about what they are watching, but without interfering with the content on the TV screen.
“Ubuntu TV is designed to work with your phones, tablets or laptops via apps that talk to the television. So whether it's game stats, movie information or the reaction to a live show in Twitter, viewers can enjoy relevant second-screen content.”
Canonical is displaying the prototype of Ubuntu TV at CES, using a variation of the familiar tagline “TV for human beings” saying the intention is to make TV intuitive again. The company is reportedly in talks with “several manufacturers” and content providers.
Competition ahead
Earlier this week, Lenovo unveiled its first Android-based smart TV, while last week Google announced partnerships with Sony, LG and Samsung for future Google TV offerings. Analysts also expect Apple to launch its own potentially market-dominating smart TV soon.
In a surprise move, the embattled social network MySpace has also this week announced “MySpace TV”, which aims to bring a social layer to television viewing.
MySpace TV will be available on the latest Panasonic Viera Connect-enabled HDTVs. According to a statement by MySpace, the TV interface will allow users to “discover, share and comment on” the programmes being viewed.
“Initial channels on MySpace TV will be music-focused, leveraging MySpace's unparalleled music rights and leading library of 100 000 music videos and 42 million songs,” says MySpace, adding that the intention is to expand beyond music to encompass movies, news, sports and reality.
“The platform fully integrates social and television in new ways that add a dimension to content discovery and evolve the traditional television experience. A companion app will be available on tablets and smartphones, providing instant sync capabilities for a seamless experience.”
Social experience?
MySpace CEO Tim Vanderhook says: “Our belief was that we could enhance the TV experience by increasing viewers' ability to connect to both content and each other. By partnering with Panasonic, we're bringing together the content that people love and a social experience in one service: MySpace TV.”
New co-owner of MySpace, Justin Timberlake, adds: “We're ready to take television and entertainment to the next step by upgrading it to the social networking experience.”
MySpace TV will launch in the first half of 2012. It will remain to be seen if the ailing social network will be able to find success on a new platform.
MySpace was sold by News Corp to Specific Media last year, and the site is yet to show any significant turnaround strategy.
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