KDE releases Plasma Active One

Open source desktop project KDE has released the Plasma Active One UX: A touchscreen interface for smartphones, tablets, and devices such as set-top boxes, smart TVs, and in-vehicle infotainment.

See KDE releases Plasma Active One: In pictures

Plasma Active One revolves around the concept of ‘Activities’, with the home screen featuring a series of widgets that can be filled up with application shortcuts, Web browser bookmarks, pictures, or interactive widgets such as weather forecasts.

Users can also organise apps, contacts, documents, media, websites and widgets that belong together in Activities, essentially creating virtual desktops that can be used to arrange different projects dedicated to business, holidays, school projects or social life.

The Peek&Launch bar at the top of the screen shows every running application, allowing users to quickly select or switch between applications. The launcher is exposed when the Peek&Launch bar is dragged down.

The Share-Like-Connect feature enables users to share images with a friend or post them online; ‘like’ documents related to a project so that a search will find them quickly; or connect any viewed websites, pictures or documents to a related Activity.

Plasma Active runs on a Linux desktop stack, including the Linux kernel, Qt and KDE's Plasma Framework.

Plasma Active Two is expected to be released in December this year and feature automated recommendations for Activities and enhanced viewing and filtering. Plasma Active Three will focus on security to protect users’ data on devices and expansion of the UX to set-top boxes and handhelds, with the launch planned for 2012.

According to the KDE site, KDE is in the process of developing a specification for underlying OS requirements and there are also plans to add support for ARM-based devices.

Follow Diana Nguyen on Twitter: @diananguyen9

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