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Canonical’s goal to build a smartphone that could act like a desktop PC when you connected a mouse, keyboard, and monitor always seemed like a bit of a longshot. The company wanted to raise $32 million through crowd-funding site Indiegogo. That’s more than anyone’s ever raised for a crowd-funded project to date, and it’s for a phone running a brand new operating system from a company that’s never made a phone before.
Over the past few weeks the team has managed to raise $11.5 million in pledges from about 25,000 people, which is kind of an astonishing amount. But it’s still not even halfway to the finish line, which means the project probably won’t get fully funded unless Canonical founder (and half-billionaire) Mark Shuttleworth pulls out his wallet to make up the difference.
Here’s a roundup of tech news from around the web.
- Less than 3 days to go in the Ubuntu Edge crowd-funding campaign… $20.5 million left to raise
Canonical’s foray into crowd-funding its first smartphone appears destined to end in failure. But there’s always a chance the Ubuntu Edge campaign could inspire others to build devices that straddle the line between a smartphone and a desktop PC. [Indiegogo] - Samsung Galaxy Gear smartwatch unveiling likely coming in September
Samsung appears poised to introduce its smartwatch at least a little while before Apple’s expected watch. It’ll likely bring some functionality of a smartphone to your wrist, but it won’t make calls on its own. [The Verge] Oh, and [GigaOm] has a good idea what to expect: a 1.1 inch OLED display, a dual-core CPU, a camera, NFC, and Bluetooth. - Kaiboer Q7 is a dual-core Android media player with a 3.5 inch hard drive bay
Sporting a dual-core ARM Cortex-A7 processor, Ethernet jack, and dual antennae, this TV box looks a bit more hardy than your typical Android mini PC. It’s also one of the few with room for a 3.5 inch hard drive or SSD. [AndroidPC.es] - MINIX Neo X7Mini up for pre-order for $119 (Android TV box)
The MINIX Neo X7Mini is an Android TV box with an RK3188 quad-core processor, 2GB of RAM, 8GB of storage, Ethernet, and an IR remote. [Geekbuying] - Cerberus developer says the security vulnerability in his security app for Android has been fixed
A few days ago an exploit was discovered that could allow someone to take control of your phone remotely and even wipe your data if you had Cerberus security installed. Now the developer says that vulnerability has been removed. [Reddit] - Microsoft’s Tag (alternative to QR codes) will shut down August 19, 2015
QR codes have always felt like a stop-gap measure allowing you to scan a barcode with your phone to get more data about… well, just about anything. Eventually you’ll probably be able to do that using NFC, Bluetooth, or some other wireless protocol. But Microsoft liked the idea enough that it tried to adopt its own alternative to QR codes called Tag. It was never very popular, and now Microsoft has announced it’s (slowly) pulling the plug. Tag has two years to live. [Microsoft (on Facebook)]
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“But it’s still not even halfway to the finish line, which means the project probably won’t get fully funded unless Canonical founder (and half-billionaire) Mark Shuttleworth pulls out his wallet to make up the difference.”
There is another possibility. Indiegogo can let Canonical extend the deadline. It has been done before.
“Campaign goals and deadlines are typically set once you go ‘live.’ As a one-off, we can make exceptions to a campaign’s goal or deadline.”
https://indiestatik.com/2013/05/08/indiegogo/
Mark Shuttleworth has opened up for the possibility to extend the deadline of the campaign, if there is enough interest:
“Mr Shuttleworth said that if the campaign made significant gains in the coming days, Ubuntu would consider extending its online campaign. If it remained far from its goal, all the money would be returned to contributors.”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-23714549
If this project will be extended depends on whats happening in the next few hours, and that depends on the amount of people that is aware of this project. If you don’t know about Ubuntu Edge, you can’t buy it. If more people know about Ubuntu Edge, more people will buy it, because it is an amazing phone.
https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/ubuntu-edge/x/4167260
If they used Lubuntu LXDE as a front end, I would love it. When they went to Unity, I left using the full blown version of Ubuntu. And Kubuntu, is fine, except too much. I just want to run my apps, quickly, and have them work, period.
Don’t have time for the FAT GUI world at all.
And, besides, If they come up short, guess who will come up with the rest of the money? If anyone should, it should be that CHOICE be given, to NOT have Unity. So far, no vote taken from Ubuntu users, just Unity shoved down our throats.
FAT GUI ?
you know they’re building Unity-next which is being ported to QT and cutting down on resources, right?
I said it and i’m saying it again: Canonical is/was pointing to high: they should have started with something more down-to-earth thing: 2 or 3 affordable but wise hardware specs smartphones with Ubuntu OS (wich BTW LOOKS AWSOME …) and start polishing their new OS. After that…. who knows…
It’s pitty because these money that have been raised (even not that much perhaps) could have been used for a more down- to-earth project by Canonical.
Anyway, this was a great publicity stunt.
Still sensing the original $32m thing was more of a publicity stunt (WOW, stop! press! biggest! EVER!) than a necessity. It’ll still happen, but scaled back, choosing a sensible and suitably open existing hardware platform, and throwing the software development to the community. After all, from a hardware point of view, this really isn’t that much more complex than slapping a cellular radio, touchscreen and a battery on an Android TV stick (many of which can be persuaded to run Linux right now).
it’s A LOT more complex and harder than that, especially if you want to get it through the FCC and similar so you can actually SELL IT.
Not if they use that suitably open existing hardware platform. FCC approval is for hardware not for software or bundling, AFAICR. Ultimately, this is only going to take off if it will run on generic ARM hardware. Imagine if desktop Ubuntu was only available on some obscure hardware configuration that only Shuttleworth had?
@Brad Linder, you have an error in the story. The following should read just over 1/3 instead of just over 1/2
“Over the past few weeks the team has managed to raise $11.5 million in pledges from about 25,000 people, which is kind of an astonishing amount. But it’s still just over halfway to the finish line”
(32-11.5)/32 = 0.64 to the finish line. Over half way or 2/3 to the finish line makes sense to me.
11.5/32 –> ~36% to the finish line…
No. Emphasis on to. That’s the keyword. What you did was ~36% from the start line…
Read the original sentence:
“But it’s still just over halfway to the finish line”
Are you saying $11.5 million raised is over halfway to the finish line of $32 million needed ?
Yes, that sentence refers to how much more to go in order to reach the finish line which is 32 – 11.5.
The 1/3 word would make sense if it said “it’s 1/3 of the way to the finish line” or “it’s reached 1/3 of its goal.”
Here’s a picture:
$0 $11.5 million $32 million
I’m using the words “still,” “to” and “finish line” to see the sentence as referring to how much until the end of the goal.
Don’t worry about it Wonko_T_S, he obviously is trolling
No, the statement is saying you are a certain distance towards the finish. That’s why it was incorrect. If you don’t understand the meaning of to , here it is: https://dictionary.reference.com/browse/to
https://www.brainyquote.com/words/to/to230701.html
Think about it. Take this example, you work 300 miles away and you had driven 100 miles. Then your boss calls and you tell him “I’m just over halfway to work” . Do you think his going to understand that as meaning your over 150 miles from work as your saying he would?
But the biggest mistake your making is this, the word halfway cannot be used as random measure, it defines a point that is midway between the start and the finish. So as soon as you say its over halfway, that immediately pegs it midway between the start and finish.
Again, do you think the author would have changed the statement based on what I said if it was originally correct?
It WAS an error that was acknowledged and corrected.
No it wasn’t and the “correction” didn’t even change anything. Nice going downvoting the guy, Vcoleiro1…
Sigh,
Really, are you serious, this was the original statement
“But it’s still just over halfway to the finish line”
and it was changed to this
“But it’s still not even halfway to the finish line”
It was wrong and it was changed. Facts speak louder than words.
If the original statement was correct , the author would not have changed it . Think about that.
What you and some others are failing to understand, is the actual meaning of the word “to”. In this context , it means the motion traveled in the direction towards a point .
ie over 1/3 of the way to (direction of and motion traveled towards) the finish. Here’s the definition of the word “to”
https://dictionary.reference.com/browse/to
https://www.brainyquote.com/words/to/to230701.html
But the biggest mistake your making is this, the word halfway cannot be used as random measure, it defines a point that is midway between the start and the finish. So as soon as you say its over halfway, that immediately pegs it midway between the start and finish.
My question is…If they do not raise the full $32 Mil in the alotted time, what happens to the funds raised? Is it returned or do they keep it?
The Indiegogo funding page says this:
“This campaign will only receive funds if at least $32,000,000 is raised by its deadline.”
Mir and Unity is the dealbreakers.
Lots of otherwise hardcore Linux users literally avoided this like the plague because of those.
And people avoided android because of surfaceflinger ? ……………
give me a break.
Also if not unity what other “phone UI” they wanted canonical to use ?