It seems like just yesterday that the Ubuntu team released Ubuntu 7.04 Feisty Fawn. But Ubuntu has a 6 month release schedule, so you can expect a new version in October. Last night, a message was sent to the Ubuntu development mailing list outlining the planned feature set for Gutsy Gibbon.

In a nutshell, Ubuntu 7.10 will use the 2.6.22 kernel, and include GNOME desktop 2.2 or KDE 3.5.7 for Kubuntu (with packages for KDE 4.0 release candidate two for anyone who wants to check it out). This should be the first Ubuntu distribution to include the recently merged Compiz and Beryl 3D desktop manager.

Ubuntu 7.10 will also be the first release to include a mobile/embedded distribution for mobile phones and handheld devices. We'll be interested to see how it stacks up against the existing Linux ports for PDAs and handheld computers.

Since Ubuntu is released on a time-based schedule, rather than a feature-based one, it's possible that some of these features might not make it into Gutsy Gibbon. But it's also possible that the final release will include features not mentioned in the plan.

[via eHomeUpgrade]

Right now, most people want to watch TV on the TV. And as we've described before, getting Joost to work with your TV set involves several (kind of) complicated steps, like making sure you have a video card with TV-out, a computer close to your television, and the time and energy to figure out how to program a computer remote control to flip channels on Joost without a keyboard and mouse.

So it's good to hear that Joost is in talks with hardware makers to embed Joost in devices like cable boxes and HD-DVD and Blu-ray players. No more fighting to connect your PC to your TV. Turn on your cable box, and Joost is right there.

But at that point, isn't Joost just a new interface for video on demand, with less programming than you'd get from Comcast? Part of the whole selling point of Joost was that it made the experience of watching internet video a bit more like watching TV. If you're actually, you know, watching TV on it, does Joost actually bring anything to the table?

Sure, you'll be getting your video from the internet instead of directly from your cable provider, but to date, that's actually meant lower quality and occasional buffering issues. And while there might be a wider selection of obscure content from independent producers, we're not sure that's actually a selling point.

What do you think would you be more or less likely to use Joost if it came with your cable box?

Ubuntu is quickly become the Linux distribution of choice for users looking for a desktop Windows replacement. But why stop there?

Ubuntu developers are planning to create a mobile version of the popular distribution. The mobile version of Ubuntu will be designed to run on systems running Intel's new low-power processor and chipset designed for mobile devices.

Ubuntu is planning a mobile version of its software as well as an embedded version. In other words, you could see stripped down versions of Ubuntu running on devices ranging from UMPCs to mobile phones.

The first mobile edition is due out in October at the same time as Ubuntu 7.10 is released.

[via SolSie]

This has been bugging me for awhile, and I've just got to get it out in the open: If I want to put a cool movie trailer, a funny Comedy Central clip, or a news clip on my web site, why do I have to go to YouTube, where some kid has uploaded it in violation of the owner's copyright, and where as likely as not it'll be yanked a few days later, in order to do it? I'm talking about stuff that's already on the web--Comedy Central puts the best clips from its shows on its own web site, as does NBC for Saturday Night Live, and Apple.com has all the best movie trailers. But while I can stick a pirated clip from YouTube on my web site with two clicks, there's usually no simple, straightforward way to do the same thing from a legitimate site.

Some companies have shown signs of getting a clue. Google Video now hosts many movie trailers and some of them can be embeddeded in blogs and MySpace pages, some movies and TV shows--in particular those targeted at the youth market--now have a presence on YouTube, and a few big record labels have struck music video deals with YouTube, but the selection remains pretty bare. What troubles me is that there's no discernible disadvantage for companies to put their own TV clips, movie trailers, and music videos online in a YouTube-like way. There can't be a technical barrier--the tiny dev team at Netscape.com put together their impressive embeddable video-sharing feature in a matter of weeks--nor a commercial one--movie trailers are advertisements, as are TV clips in their own way, and there's no downside to allowing them to reach more eyeballs. What's more, if they hosted their own embeddable videos, they could decide what plays before and after them instead of some kid on YouTube deciding for them, and though they'd be crazy to put anything longer than a two seconds before the video, after the video is a great time to advertise, as the Revver folks have discovered.

So, movie studios, TV networks, ad agencies, and record companies, here's my plea: Let me advertise your stuff on my web site. Hire some smart folks to put together a Flash player like YouTube's for your site, give me HTML snippets to copy and paste into my blog, and let my visitors see your stuff, and your ads, without the extra clicks and without waiting for your lame Windows Media Player to load. Don't make me go to YouTube for what you, in the interest of your shareholders, should be giving me yourselves.