This year, the first smartphones with Ubuntu OS , the open source operating system developed by the British Canonical, will appear . As announced by the company, the initial models will be manufactured by the Chinese Meizu and the Spanish bq, while they will incorporate hardware that will place them in the middle class in terms of technical characteristics and price, costing 200-400 dollars. Although the creator of the Ubuntu OS has secured the support of several providers around the world (such as Deutsche Telekom and Vodafone), in the first phase the devices will be available online, through the websites of the British company and the two manufacturers. One element that will differentiate the phones with Ubuntu OS from other smartphones is that they will be able to be used as conventional PCs, when combined with a screen, a keyboard and a mouse.
GARTNER RESEARCH
New PC sales decline
The "dip" in computer sales will continue this year, which will decrease by -6.6% by the end of the current year, the research company Gartner points out in a study. According to the study, the reason is that many buyers will choose to purchase a new tablet rather than a PC, a consumer trend that has been evident for at least five years. Thus, the tablet market will show an increase of 38.6% in 2014, with sales reaching 270 million devices. Gartner estimates, however, that this year will be the last year of the massive shift to tablets, since from 2015 many consumers and businesses will prefer a conventional or hybrid computer, weighing their needs differently. The company also predicts an increase in smartphone sales this year, which, however, will be considerably smaller, since it will not exceed 4.9%.
FUJITSU
Palm ID
A different biometric technology will be used in the new business laptops that will be released soon by the Japanese company Fujitsu, as the laptops will identify their owner by the veins in their palm. For this purpose, the user will have to hold their hand a few centimeters above the PC, so that a special sensor can "scan" the palm with infrared radiation and "read" the complex shape created by the veins. The branching of the vessels is unique to each person, while the technology for reading it has been developed for five years by Fujitsu, which has already used it in ATM machines in Japan. Its maiden appearance on a laptop is due to the fact that the Japanese company has managed to reduce the dimensions of the required components in the meantime. In fact, it plans to reduce their size even further, so that they can even be integrated into smartphones.
