I can’t say I’m fond of the Ubuntu move to a HUD (Head-Up Display), yet.

I’m still getting used to the “Dash home” search box that becomes only intermittently available (e.g. disappears over time after switching a laptop to different external monitors while running VMware Workstation in full screen mode). What happens when you lose your HUD…?

On really large monitors, if your HUD decides to appear, it mockingly sits stuck to the upper left corner forcing you to constantly be running your focus back-and-forth across the screen(s). Menus on dual or quad 24″ screens used to be so convenient but the HUD is often far away from where you naturally look.

Another serious concern is that you have to constantly use an input field to find data. You have the problem of typing accidentally and exposing info, being fooled by a bogus HUD, having the HUD log monitored or mined…I haven’t seen anyone discussing the privacy implications of the input.

That being said, Ubuntu has announced the general availability of 12.04 LTS. It’s the logical progression from 10.04 LTS for servers that have no graphical interface but the desktop path may be less clear.

I have seen the direction Ubuntu is taking discussed as though someone is removing our wheels and telling us to fly before they have fully attached the wings. Who is really driving this thing? And then Gnome3 classic on Ubuntu 12.04 LTS isn’t classic so switching back isn’t a full option.

Meanwhile LinuxMint continues to give an experience more in-line with what people are used to, without proselyting a UI. Ever wonder why DuckDuckGo has suddenly become so popular? It’s the default search engine on LinuxMint so maybe, just maybe, it reflects popularity of an OS with the classic menus?

It seems like a good time to wait and see how Ubuntu polishes their story and the interface. It might not be long before we say “there goes the HUD”. Note, there’s at least one other good reason to wait: after upgrading to Ubuntu 12.04 LTS, VMware Workstation 8.0.2 needs a vmware802fixlinux320.tar.gz patch to run again.

On a slightly related note, my impression of 12.04 has shifted after Shuttleworth’s comments on HUD. At first I was caught up in the heat of the moment from a new LTS release and new features…so I whipped up a little pangolin bling based on the 12.04 wallpapers. Here’s my initial remix of one of the (un)official selections:

Then, after a month or so of fighting with the intermittent Dash Home errors and developing workarounds for the new UI, I found myself thinking about a very different pangolin picture.

Here are two very different trailers for the comedy Man Without a Cell Phone, which explores Israeli-Arab tensions in the context of mobile phone service and the average every-day concern of people who use it.

Germany is pressing ahead with a huge EMV project, according to Die Deutsche Kreditwirtschaft

Die Deutsche Kreditwirtschaft als die Interessenvertretung der kreditwirtschaftlichen Spitzenverbände und die deutschen Acquirer haben zum Zwecke der Errichtung und des Betriebs einer EMV-fähigen Netzbetreiber-Infrastruktur und von EMV-fähigen POS-Terminals im deutschen Markt ein gemeinsames, kartenproduktübergreifendes Zulassungsverfahren vereinbart.

In other words the German banking industry, on behalf of associations and acquirers, is committed to building out an EMV infrastructure. Their latest analysis suggests a big drop in fraud can be linked to recent EMV trials.

Data theft at cash dispensers is reported to have been 45 percent down in 2011 from the previous year