The Ubuntu Phone is far from dead. In fact, we've been promised that we can still expect to see the Linux OS go big in our smartphones in 2014
Despite missing the funding goal to get its own handset out on the market, Canonical has kept busy to get manufacturers to build their own Ubuntu OS smartphones.
And speaking in a Google Hangout, Canonical community manager Juno Bacon confirmed that all signs are good.
"I'm confident that in 2014 you're going to see a number of Ubuntu phones hitting the market," he said. "I can't tell you [who it will be] right now but I can tell you that some awesome things are happening."
One OS to rule them all
Bacon also implied that we'll see some devices made exclusively for certain regions and carriers as well as some that will be sold unlocked online.
That's as concrete as Canonical is being right now, but it sounds like we can expect to see Ubuntu popping up all over the shop in the coming months.
We've heard about the Motorola Ara project, which is developing a modular smartphone allowing you to change parts such as camera and processor with ease, but ZTE is also looking into part-swapping handsets.
Motorola said back in December 2013 that its modular prototype was "pretty close", but it's been beaten to the punch by the ZTE Eco-Mobius.
The Chinese firm showed off its own modular smartphone concept at CES 2014 in Las Vegas, and although the phone itself was behind glass it shows a step forward in the technology.
Hot swap
The Eco-Mobius prototype allows a user to change its display, camera, battery, processor and RAM modules.
This would mean you could purchase the base spec at a low cost and once you've got more cash to burn, upgrade various parts - into photography? Then buy a better camera module. Running out of juice? Get yourself a bigger battery.
As to when we may actually see a modular smartphone actually hit stores, the people over at ZTE reckon the technology is two years away - CES 2016 better watch out.
Garry Veale, president of Avaya in Europe, places his bets on the communications trends he thinks will make it big in 2014.
Connected Generation
In my mind, the trends we'll see emerging in 2014 will be driven largely by the desires and expectations of a new kind of workforce.
This workforce doesn't know a world without the internet, expects answers instantly, seeks constant engagement, and is comfortable with "connected" technologies like no other generation. It will have a profound impact on business and the way it operates in the future. Businesses will start to appreciate the limitations of mature networks.
To accommodate this hyper-connected generation, networks need to be fully prepared. Typical working environments weren't built to withstand the consumerisation of IT, BYOD, and BYOA, and enterprise technology often isn't capable of delivering the experience we're used to getting at home.
Next year more businesses will come to realise that relying on existing, and often mature networks will limit their ability to communicate in ways now expected. The network is key to enabling device and application flexibly and businesses will focus increasingly on creating environments that are flexible enough to embrace and enable the new era of communications. To do this, they must put in place clear and effective strategies that enable them to achieve simplicity of deployment and management.
Network demands
The Sochi 2014 Winter Olympic Games is a prime example of this: the 75,000 mobility-hungry, hyper-connected spectators visiting the park each day will place unprecedented demands on the network.
This requires a flexible, secure and robust infrastructure capable of carrying vast amounts of data and coping with huge spikes in traffic during flagship events.
Society's appetite for cutting-edge technologies will impact infrastructure investment at all levels – whether that's an Olympics or a small business implementation. Regardless of the scale and profile of the project, organisations of all sizes face many of the same challenges, and that's the key takeaway for 2014.
We'll see the emergence of smarter offices through communications-enabled technologies.
Avaya's Gary Veale
Getting more done
We're progressively moving towards much more functional and productive ways of working. Concepts like the 'Internet of Things' or 'machine to machine communications', which are trending now, will soon become major influencing factors in the future of business.
In fact, communications-enabled technology will begin to enforce change on business processes as companies are presented with more timely and relevant information about customers. Technology and networks that are self-aware will rise up the agenda as the cost of the sensor technology which enables this reaches an all-time low.
In fact, Gartner predicts that we'll soon reach the point where it's cheaper to have a communications-enabled system than not. This will lead to a fundamental change in the way companies work – from new ways of developing technology, to better facilities management through an increase in pay-as-you-go billing models for office utilities.
Video star
Video will come to be recognised as a real cost-saving tool.
One of the most talked about communications technologies, video has been rising up the agenda for some time now. I think in 2014, however, we'll really start to see businesses realising the cost and productivity benefits of video solutions. In fact, we've already started to see that happening in 2013.
Video is benefiting from more advanced hardware, employee hunger for collaboration, more sophisticated networks, and more interoperability. Solutions are now accessible and affordable and the advantages of lower travel costs and higher productivity are grabbing the attention of more and more customers.
In addition, videoconferencing is no longer reserved for typical office-based businesses; it's also filtering through vertical industries such as retail.
If we take the example of SPAR UK, the successful convenience store chain, it chose Avaya's Scopia solution because the company needed a reliable, scalable, collaborative video solution to ensure that employees of all seven business units were able to communicate effectively without losing time and money to travelling for meetings.
SPAR UK saw an immediate return on that investment as employees no longer have to commute from branch to branch for meetings, and they're now more organised and productive in those meetings. We're starting to see a true democratisation of video and this trend will continue in 2014.
The contact centre will adapt even more to the next generation
Well connected
The rise of this hyper-connected generation will continue to impact the contact centre in a major way. Consumers who contact companies via digital and social channels expect outstanding customer service regardless of the platform they choose.
The customer service industry is changing dramatically as a result; businesses need to have the capability to allow customers to move seamlessly from one channel to another, without losing the thread of the interaction. And they need to provide a consistent service across all channels.
We'll see this trend persist in 2014 as it forces companies to re-evaluate their customer experience strategy to include those new platforms.
Companies are already looking to the contact centre to find ways to generate additional revenue without adding cost to the operation. Similarly, they are looking at how to automate more of the customer services model and drive more customers to self-service options to reduce time.
Integration and application development will therefore be an area of rapid growth in 2014, particularly as companies look to develop a customer service experience on new devices such as mobile applications, video or social networks.
Moving into 2014 – as our uptake of smart devices, and digital and social applications continues to intensify – I believe businesses will above all need to focus on investing in technologies that embrace and enable the new era of communications we live in today. It's an exciting time for the communications technology industry, and I'm eager to find out what next year has in store.
Sony has confirmed to TechRadar that it is actively looking into the possibility of launching a Windows Phone as it seeks to move away from being a single OS manufacturer.
Pierre Perron, head of Sony Mobile Europe, told TechRadar it didn't want to offer only one flavour of mobile OS, stating: "We are continuing our discussions with other partners, including Microsoft, as part of our partnership with this company on the broader Sony spectrum.
"[Working with Microsoft] is an interesting proposition for us in the PC environment, and we continue our engagement with them.
"We are exploring this as part of our discussion in mobile space too. One thing is using the platform [Windows Phone] itself, and another is 'what can we deliver on top of it'?"
There have been rumours that Sony is planning a comeback in the Windows Phone space for a while now, and this statement echoes a similar one made by Perron in 2012.
However soon after that CEO Kunimasa Suzuki moved to quash such speculation, saying the company had no plans to release a Windows Phone device.
Coming back around
The two brands do have history in the mobile space, with the Xperia X1 launching with Windows Mobile coming in 2008. However, the X2 sequel was launched but never released, and Sony has since then been focused solely on Android smartphones.
Given the success Sony is slowly achieving with Android power, it could seem odd that the brand would look elsewhere, but Pierron believes this is as much about safety in a changing market as it is about offering consumer choice:
"We don't want to be a single OS manufacturer, I don't think it's a viable position in the long term," added Perron.
"We enjoy very much a good collaboration with Google, we've been working with them for a long time and have a level of maturity with that discussion, that's good. But at the same time, Google has a relationship with direct competitors."
Perron declined to give a specific date on when we might see a Windows Phone, stating that the discussions were tentative at the moment (and clearly have been for some time) , but given the steady rise in popularity for Microsoft's OS, it seems that perhaps there may still be others looking to launch on Windows Phone too.
Remember the Samsung GamePad? The thing that was announced all the way back in March 2013 but never materialised? Well, it's back, it's changed colour and we've run our fingers all over the new version.
There are many stark differences with this new polished unit from Samsung - namely, the millions (well, three) joystick / d-pads that adorn the front.
Two analogue sticks promise easy use for first person shooters, and the d-pad gives reassurance that you'll be able to pull off those more complex special moves in fighting games.
Samsung has gone all out with the new GamePad, with trigger buttons, a selection of input keys, a 'play' button to instantly get to the mobile gaming section and a generally better-packaged offering.
The extendable support for the phone is impressive too, with holding the phone in strongly and not giving that heart-stopping wiggle that makes you anxious to rigidly play games over a pile of pillows.
It also allows you to connect to a TV, either through MHL or screen mirroring, theoretically making your powerful little phone into a console to rival the likes of the GameStick.
However, this is the point where things come unstuck - it quickly became apparent during testing that using any Android 4.3-enabled device with this controller isn't going to be a pleasant experience.
Any game (I favoured Sonic the Hedgehog 4 because I really impressed the Samsung engineer with my skills last year - real highlight) shows a huge degree of lag; not only that, but it appears the amount of latency between controller and screen will change, so you can't even feel any consistency.
This was present in the first iteration of the device, and it's maddening that Samsung hasn't fixed it still, especially when dedicated cheap Android consoles have managed the trick.
However, it's a better experience when you use the GamePad to play games on the move, with the latency not an issue when connected by Bluetooth.
Games run fluidly on the top-end hardware Samsung is cranking out, and the ability to use other phones in the dock is welcome - it's important that devices like this have a wide appeal.
The quality of the controller was unimpressive though. The main joystick on the left-hand side of the device was 'crunchy' and made it hard to smoothly transition through worlds - I quickly found myself looking to use the d-pad, which is fine for the older titles, but today's FPS titles need fluidity.
When you consider that the GamePad is a hair-raising £80 (around $130) then such things shouldn't be seen. I tried another model and it was slightly better, but the issue was still there, meaning it would be hard to recommend this to a hardcore mobile gamer.
When you consider equivalent controllers like the Moga Pro are half the cost with similar functionality (albeit without NFC for easy pairing) you'll see why Samsung may have a hard sell with this device.
Early verdict
The suite of dedicated titles for the GamePad is a little low and is unlikely to change in the near future to a drastic degree - mobile gaming still needs a lot of work for it to be a viable tool for developers to connect to.
The GamePad is a well-put together piece of technology, but suffers from an inability to stream games well to a larger screen, poor joystick quality and a high price.
It's a cool idea still, and 2014 is clearly going to be the year when we see some real power come along in the mobile gaming controller space - but the GamePad isn't going to be that device.
