Ubuntu in your pocket is the latest initiative from Ubuntu.
We’ll show Ubuntu neatly integrated into Android at Mobile World Congress next week. Carry just the phone, and connect it to any monitor to get a full Ubuntu desktop with all the native apps you want, running on the same device at the same time as Android. Magic. Everything important is shared across the desktop and the phone in real time.
Basically it’s a way to extend desktop functionality to a tethered android smartphone. Incoming call alerts through GNOME notifications, contacts/calendar/data integrated from the phone into the desktop and a raft of other interesting stuff. Requirements are an Android 2.3 and HDMI out.
More info over at:
Even though I have some questions about this (ie: tethering? why not Bluetooth?) I think that this is very cool and is the sort of innovation that is great to see from the open source world.
Update: It seems I might have been a bit off in what I thought that the Ubuntu on Android app was actually doing. This video demo shows it’s more of a desktop view (using the standard unity desktop) of the phone. IE: Instead of the ubuntu running on your phone, when docked it runs ubuntu on your computer screen, from the phone. I think. Just watch the video, you’ll get it.