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  • Simon: I'm here with Mark Shuttleworth from Canonical, great to see you again Mark, so

  • you've just had a tremendous hit on Indigogo with a new project, do you want to tell me

  • about it?

  • Mark: A brilliant day one for the project, but there's a marathon still to come as we

  • push through to the finish line.

  • Simon: Well, you've cleared 10% of your 32 million dollar goal in 12 hours or something

  • Mark: Broke the record for time to $1million, broke the record for time to $2million, broke

  • the record for a 1st day, but we have to smash the total record to succeed.

  • Simon: Yes, there's still 90% to go. So what is this project about?

  • Mark: The project is really about the dynamics of innovation in the mobile industry. Through

  • no fault of their own the big players are essentially extremely conservative about how

  • they bring new innovations, new components, new technologies into phones, and similarly

  • for PCs. The reason for that is they have no clear signalling from the market as to

  • what's really exciting, what's really interesting, what people are really going to want. So they

  • rely either on mystical genius a la Steve Jobs or luck, or generally they end up being really

  • conservative. So the idea is to use crowdfunding to take a concept of stuff that might be really

  • amazing in a device, validate that concept by seeing if there's enough people to back

  • the project and then being able to test the new technologies and components at moderate,

  • modest production volumes, but thereby bringing forward the time when those sorts of technologies

  • will be widely available on the mass market.

  • Simon: So you've compared that to the way that Formula One feeds innovation into the motor industry,

  • it's that sort of an idea.

  • Mark: Sure. Todays there's a huge gap between the lab and mass market automobiles, and we're

  • all driving the mass market automobiles. In the car industry you have Formula One which is really

  • cutting edge, then you have the premium segments which is where those technologies would go

  • next and then you have the mass market. What we're trying to do is show that innovation,

  • selection and proving can happen through crowdfunding.

  • Simon: So you're trying to get the best of breed technologies into the physical device

  • as well as trying to produce an innovative operating system in the shape of the Ubuntu

  • phone software which you've put out

  • Mark: Right. So we're working with phone manufacturers, that's kind of how we got interested in this

  • idea of the innovation cycle. We have a particular passion which is convergence, the idea that

  • your phone could also be the heart of the PC and that is stretching a little bit beyond

  • what phone manufacturers have on their horizons for the next 1 or 2 years. We think it's totally

  • possibly, but there's no mechanism to test that out today. So in this case the concept

  • phone essentially is capable of being a desktop as well as a phone, it has dramatically more

  • RAM, its also testing some new components, some new battery technology, new screen technology,

  • and other capabilities. If its green-lighted then the technologies in that device, if they're

  • successful will be widely available a year ahead of where they would otherwise have been.

  • Simon: So what's this device going to be like?

  • Mark: This is a physical model of it. I present the Edge. you go through an intense design

  • process thats actually selecting technologies, then its actually working with the design

  • manufacturer to get a sense of whether the things feasible to make then looking at the

  • industrial design. We're fortunate in Canonical because we're so focussed on design of software

  • we were able to reach out into the design community and work with some really great

  • guys who've done this. It echoes a lot of the software design stories that we have but

  • it introduces a really nice industrial edge to it.

  • Simon: and that's going to end up being a smart phone when its a phone and a desktop

  • PC when there's an HDMI monitor plugged into it?

  • Mark: that's exactly right, it has image out and docking, connecting that up to any HDMI

  • monitor with a Bluetooth keyboard gives you a full PC experience, either with android

  • in the form of an Ubuntu desktop which is running off your Android phone and and has

  • access to all of those files and contacts and so on or in the case of Ubuntu where you

  • have Ubuntu on the phone and giving you the desktop environment simultaneously.

  • Simon: So when is this going to be ready? I admit I've actually ordered one, so when

  • am I going to get my phone Mark?

  • Mark: if its greenlighted - May 2014

  • Simon: Well, congratulations on breaking the world record for crowd funding in a single

  • day. You've got a long way to go. I saw you put up some more offers up today.

  • Mark: As we figure out what works, what people are rallying to we'll tweak the perks and

  • offers. The credit sits with the team that led this idea, and also with the people who've

  • backed it, who've been incredible and with Indigogo which is a really great crowdfunding

  • platform, they've been super to work with. you can imagine behind the scenes we've had

  • to work with Paypal and clear alot of regulatory and other hurdles to take on something like

  • this.

  • Simon: So what's going to be in there? That's all going to be free software?

  • Mark: Yes, we'll ship this with Android and Ubuntu, no plans to put proprietary applications

  • on it. We haven't finalised the silicon selection so were looking at the next generation silicon

  • from all major vendors. I would like to ship it with all Free drivers. What's really interesting

  • is how this is driving the evolution of the free software desktop in the form of Unity

  • and Ubuntu and also how the work thats going into the phone is trust forming the cloud

  • as well so if this ends up with an arm processor it will be running exactly the same version

  • of ubuntu that's running on the arm moonshot service from hp, which is kind of incredible.

  • Simon: So anything else you want to say about the project?

  • Mark: No, other than thank you very much to all the folks that have backed us and if greenlighted

  • we will work our guts out to deliver an incredible device that makes all sorts of new possibilities.

  • The thing that really excites me about this is the hardware angle of essentially inverting

  • the innovation process. So instead of having 10 product managers who sweat it trying to

  • decide what's important we crowdfund innovation, we crowd select innovation. But what's really

  • amazing is that this will be a phone which can do things that no other portable device

  • has ever done. Imagine what some student at MIT is going to do, the great thing about

  • open source is not the things that we dream are possible but the fact that other people

  • can turn around and do things that we didn't even think about. that's pretty amazing.

Simon: I'm here with Mark Shuttleworth from Canonical, great to see you again Mark, so

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