I certainly hope that Ubuntu is ready with software that provides a phone interface on a phone and a desktop interface when plugged into a monitor.
Because unlike a year and a half ago when they tried the Edge, hardware is (almost) ready for it.
The next generation of monitors, PC's, phones and tablets will all have USB 3.1 Type C ports. These are true docking ports, able to supply 100W of power, and transmit DisplayPort, PCIExpress and USB simultaneously.
You'll only have a single cable connected between your laptop and your monitor, with power, keyboard, mouse, network, printer, et cetera plugged into the monitor.
We've been able to do that before, but it's always been expensive and/or proprietary.
But what's really new is that this same cable will also be able to plug into your phone, letting you replace the laptop with a phone.
I desperately want an all-in-one device like that which I can clip onto my belt, with my phone or desktop or tablet serving as a thin client. Makes me wonder if that could be the future of mobile gaming.
Can the USB3.1 port both host peripherals and receive charge at the same time? Because I know that's always the challenge with USB2 that you're either functioning as host or client, and hosts control peripherals while clients receive power... when a "docking-station" scenario involves the host receiving power from the client (impossible with USB2). USB2 ports can switch between host and client, but they can't do both at once like that.
IIRC (and that's a very big if), type C connectors allow either the host or the client to supply the power. Good question, probably worth a bit of google time to confirm my recollection...
The article states
"Unlike the original proposal, the handset does not become a desktop PC when plugged into a monitor."
There is no need for a PC interface therefore.
As far as I know, they're the same thing. Unity 8 Desktop Mode will be the normal desktop experience, but reimplemented in a Qt-based shell because that's what Ubuntu uses as its standard API now. ("Reimplemented" as compared to Unity 7, which had the same interface with different underlying technologies.) Therefore, when you plug your phone into a monitor, it will give you a normal desktop experience, just running on your phone.
However, I'm not an Ubuntu developer; I just follow their work. So this could be wrong.
I agree that the future could be phones that can be docked to have full desktop environment. And I think it can happen soon with phones using the newer Intel Atom processors, because there are already tablets that can dual boot Android and full Windows 8.1 with good performance, and there are already a few phones with Intel CPU and new ones are announced. Also Microsoft said that Windows 10 will unify desktop with Windows Phone OS.
Because unlike a year and a half ago when they tried the Edge, hardware is (almost) ready for it.
The next generation of monitors, PC's, phones and tablets will all have USB 3.1 Type C ports. These are true docking ports, able to supply 100W of power, and transmit DisplayPort, PCIExpress and USB simultaneously.
You'll only have a single cable connected between your laptop and your monitor, with power, keyboard, mouse, network, printer, et cetera plugged into the monitor.
We've been able to do that before, but it's always been expensive and/or proprietary.
But what's really new is that this same cable will also be able to plug into your phone, letting you replace the laptop with a phone.