Canonical Designer Demos Ubuntu Context-Aware UI

Blacklaw writes "Canonical's Christian Giordano has posted details of what he believes could be the future of user interface design in Ubuntu — a system that detects physical context. Designed to be paired with a webcam or other sensor system, the concept is that the computer is able to detect where a user is in proximity to the display along with an idea of roughly what he or she might be doing. Using this information, the operating system — in this case, Ubuntu Linux — can automatically make changes to the screen layout. For example, when the system detects that the user has leaned back in his or her chair, the system automatically makes the currently playing video full-screen. Lean forward again, and the video returns to its previous windowed mode."

Comments

Great idea!

[Anonymous Coward]

Next, maybe they will get my printer to work with Ubuntu!

Re:Great idea!

[hairyfeet]

And therein you have just fallen for yet another logical fallacy. did you see it? Oh and for those who labeled troll? Don't blame me if your emperor is naked. as a retailer you need guys like me to sell and support your product, which is at its current state a minefield of pain. Not my fault. as for the logic fail you fell for here it is "I can send my customers to buy a copy of Windows 7" fail. Nobody buys windows 7, they buy a new PC! The ONLY windows 7 upgrades I've been selling is those stuck in Vista hell, and if it worked with Vista it worked with 7, simple. on the other hand YOUR customers have to install your product

The point, which Linux guys can go "LA LA LA!" all day long and won't change, is the VAST majority of users out there are NOT IT guys, nor are they CS grads. No they are people like your Aunt and Uncle, who know how to put in a CD and go clicky clicky, and know how to shop at Walmart. And for them Linux equals a giant FAIL, whether you want to believe, though I am willing to prove it. Ready? Take the Hairyfeet challenge: Load up walmart, Staples, And Best Buy's online pages. From now until the experiment is over you are NOT a Linux guru, you are a normal noob. Buy these three things WITHOUT research, and for fairness go by price alone with 2 out of three stores. A USB Wifi card, a USB TV Tuner, and a USB AIO Printer. These are the big three sellers. Go ahead, I'll wait. Now go to Ubuntu forums and see how many actually worked OOTB.

Looking at about 30% aren't you? and that is if you count "support" as putting in 3 pages of CLI junk, which I don't. windows has had a simple GUI to search the web for drivers since XP, in Vista and 7 this works quite well. WTF Linux? Why can't my aunt just right click on a non working device, choose "find driver" and have the damned thing work? Remember, nobody cares about excuses, all they care about is does it work. Until you fix problems like these and the dreaded "update foo broke my hardware" problem, which honestly out of 4 bog standard PCs I never had Ubuntu update it self not ONCE without breaking something, then I stand by my statement: Linux is NOT like windows and is instead more comparable to Apple. Like apple one needs to throw out most if not all the hardware for more expensive hardware designed for that OS, unless you are just dumpster diving and using ancient hardware that has been in the kernel forever. But of course nobody wants the old and busted, they want the new hotness which Linux does NOT support unless you research your ass off and buy hardware A, rev g, which if you are gonna go through all that, why not just buy a Mac?

So don't blame the messenger, having everyone sitting around going "Gee, isn't Ubuntu swell? It sure is Biff!" doesn't gain share, which you desperately need to get manufacturers to support you. I sat up 4 boxes in the shop hoping that Linux had finally gotten average Joe friendly, instead what I found was a mess with more hours wasted on CLI bullshit than I care to count, and even bog standard hardware like Broadcom, Realtek, SiS, ATI, and Nvidia being seriously hit or miss across upgrades. As a retailer I want Linux to succeed, I really do. I remember the days of the atari and commodore when one had real choices in the market. But my time costs $50 an hour, at that rate it only takes 2 hours to equal a copy of Windows XP or 7 Home. Hell I couldn't even write off the hours wasted and just sell the machine once I had everything settled, because guess what happened in less than 6 months when Ubuntu updates rolled around? Yep back to square one with broken shit. I can sell a windows box and know my customer is good for 7 years minimum of security updates and often even longer. The BEST Ubuntu has to offer is THREE, and that is if you count not bothering to port most newer software and just leaving it old and busted.

don't blame the messenger when even /. brags when Linux reaches 1% like that is

Re:Great idea!

[hairyfeet]

Hi MR AC! How did he "troll" me when he has been spilling the same tired old lies guys on Linux forums have been saying for ages? Go to ANY Linux forum and you'll hear them gush about "No need to get all new hardware, just use Linux!" but when you actually try that and find a good 30-60% of your stuff works only halfway, if at all, you get "Oh the support for that is awful, teh won't give us their code! you should buy product X!" which of course means throwing out working hardware and buying more to use Linux.

I truly believe the only way to change things is to make one's voice heard. I believe if we retailers and consumers call out the groupies when they lie, then maybe, just maybe, the Linux users will join in and pressure the developers for change. Hell look at TFA, is there users out there clamoring for this "feature"? Hell no! Instead of wasting resources on more bling bling crap that a good 90% of the population couldn't give a crap about focus on stability and usability and make that job #1. Oh and Linus needs to stop acting like a prima donna and allow a stable hardware ABI that allows for drivers to actually work across upgrades, thus making it easier for manufacturers to support Linux. you listen to the arguments Linus makes and it all boils down to 'I don't like it, so there!'. Also development of the kernel needs to be split between a server team and a desktop team, because as we saw with Con things that are good for desktop users may not be good for servers, and Linus will always bow to the server users, since that is who is paying him.

And finally, if you are calling me a troll, nope. Just someone who spent nearly two years trying to get Linux to work well enough to sell it to the common man, only to watch it fall down like a house of cards over and over again. Ubuntu, PCLOS, Mandriva, Puppy, you name it I tried it, hoping beyond hope that someone, anyone, would actually care about making a distro that could compete with OSX and Windows. Instead what I found was just like TFA, where bling bling crap was given priority while important things like having hardware that worked in Foo work in Foo+1 or having a simple GUI to deal with driver issues were repeatedly ignored. Oh, and have you ever looked at a Dell Ubuntu machine, MR AC? notice anything...funny...about them? Dell disables the Ubuntu repos in all their offerings. why? Because even Dell, an OEM with a one on one relationship with Canonical, can't even allow their machines to update without the hardware failing to work after updating that's why. That is...well it is beyond inexcusable.

But things never change if we all just sit back and take it. We should be pointing out that if Canonical can't even be bothered to do basic QA on the very few models their OEMs offer, then what chance do normal folks have? Calling them out to the carpet on such things is the only way things will ever change, and if we don't in 2014 we'll be talking about the runaway success of Windows 8 while listening to Ubuntu guys here say "next year is the year of Linux on the desktop" while the numbers are STILL below the margin for error.

Re:Great idea!

[hairyfeet]

OMFG! Did you just compare being a slave to owning an iPad? This is hilarious! Good Lord you've drank too much of the Koolaid! How about instead of standing on a soapbox preaching like a nut, you ask yourself some simple questions, and then you might actually see I'm right. Ask yourself these questions, that is of course if being a FLOSSie allows you to have freedom including free thought. ask yourself this: Why has my free product gone exactly nowhere in 15 years? why will manufacturers and retailers like myself not carry your product, even though it was save us significant money in windows licensing? Why do people line up for anything Jobs puts out, while open phones like the Moto die hard?

If you'd quit drinking the Koolaid you'd know the answer, it is because YOUR UI SUCKS! that is why. You have this great underpinning with the world's shittiest UI. Even the simplest task ends up needing a fucking 70s throwback terminal. well you know what? It ain't 1979 anymore! Get rid of the damned terminal, use a focus group or better yet go around and ask retailers and users what you're doing wrong, and fix it! This has worked for every company since the beginning of time, and the ONLY reason it doesn't get done in FLOSS is Koolaid drinkers like you refusing to admit problems and instead spouting "freedom!" which 99.9995% of the population couldn't care less about if your UI is a giant PITA.

So go ahead and waste mod points on me, my karma is so high I don't care about karma anymore, I just believe in truth, and here is some for FLOSS: You're at 1% after FIFTEEN YEARS, okay? Hell if they broke it down by OS I wouldn't be surprised if those on Win98/Win2K, two abandoned old junkers, are beating you in numbers. I'm pointing this out because I believe in a free market and if FLOSS is EVER gonna have a shot, now is the time. Ballmer is a shitty CEO and MSFT can't do mobile designs for shit. All you have to compete with ATM is Jobs, and anything you gain in mobile can be pumped back into desktop. But burying your head in the sand like a religious zealot who refuses to believe the world is more than 6000 years old will NOT help FLOSS. Only by calling developers to the carpet and getting those problems that are hamstringing Linux fixed will FLOSS go forward. But sadly I believe now that things will never change, things will NEVER get better. And frankly it is because of guys like you that will gloss over any failure by screaming "freedom" at the top of their lungs. Freedom to be a complete fail, maybe. freedom to actually gain any share? not at all.

Re:Great idea!

[hairyfeet]

Your problem with Windows could be fixed in UNDER 30 minutes, and that is giving you extra time. For the "no sound" you simply use SIW which will tell you who makes the sound card, then Google does the rest. If you are talking about a laptop the OEMs never bother updating those, which means you have to go straight to the source. as for WinXP? XP ISO Builder which is also free like SIW will have you a custom XP disc with drivers in under 10 minutes, and is so simple my 15 year old made his own XP disc.

Now let me ask you a question, and be honest: How much CLI did you have to do to set up those "clueless relatives" of yours? How many times when Ubuntu upgrade came around did you have one or more pieces of hardware that worked before not work afterward? How much time did you spend on forums hunting for "fixes"? If you handed these clueless relatives their PC with a blank HDD and Ubuntu, what are the odds they will have a COMPLETELY working system when they are done?

You see it is quite easy to have clueless relatives on Linux...if you are willing to be unpaid tech support for life. MY time costs $50 an hour, and I don't do freebies, which means just TWO hours of hunting forums or dealing with CLI hoops costs me MORE than a copy of windows Home. A wise man here on /. once said "Linux is free if your time is worthless" and no truer words have ever been spoken. Until the day comes that I can hand a customer a working Linux box and have at LEAST a 90% confidence that when the 6 month upgrade cycle comes around they won't be stuck with a paperweight then it is worthless to me and most retailers.

BTW, what do you think of the fact that Dell has to disable updating and Canonical repos from ALL their Ubuntu offerings, because even with the tiny subset of machines Dell offers Canonical can't even be bothered with basic QA to ensure they don't break on update? I mean if Dell, a billion dollar company with a one on one relationship with Canonical, can't even get basic QA support or allow their machines to update without it falling like a house of cards, what chance do the rest of us have...hmmm?

Re:Porn

[grub]

Youporn if you're using Ubuntu. If it gets ported to the Mac you go to goatse.

I jest, I jest.

Re:what happens...

[Kristopeit,MichaelDa]

because i'm capable of designing test cases likely to drastically fail user interface tests?

you're an idiot.

The Inevitable Idiot

[Anonymous Coward]

Way to go dipshit! 10 years desktop Linux has been a joke. 10 years idiots like you running their dimwitted mouth off.

It's not even funny anymore. Just fucking pathetic and sad.

Re:what happens...

[Mikey Kristopeity]

HA, likely story, me. How can we be a coward if you're posting as us under our real name?

Also, no pederast here, unless you know something about us that you're not privy to.

Now stop talking to yourself, you're making us look crazy.

Re:Hmm

[ukemike]

This has been the most discouraging thing about linux for me. The constant radical updates. I think the self-imposed 6 month version "upgrade" schedule has become a sickness. They feel like they have to do something radical to get that "new and improved" shine every time. I was just starting to get the hang of kubuntu. I was using my son's computer as a sort of test bed, and it was going well. I was seriously considering that my next pc would be based on kubuntu. Then kde4 came along and I'm faced with a totally different interface. I never recovered. Now my son's computer sits there unused because I can't even navigate the damn windows.

Hey developers, here's a hint: if useability is your goal don't radically change it every few versions. Once you find something that works well, stick with it and refine it. Make it faster. Add thoughtful things to make it a bit better. When was the last time that OSX had a radical interface change? Well I hear the iTunes was a big departure, and everyone hates it! I'm afraid that the year of linux on the desktop was about 2007. If you blinked you missed it.