Just a day ago, we introduced you to an upcoming Ubuntu speech recognition app, which looked pretty amazing in the featured demo video. Its author, James McClain, had promised the imminent release of the app to the public with an open source license. Ubuntu voice recognition app has now entered private beta, and the author wants interested parties to join in and help him make this app better before the eventual final release.

Highly acclaimed 2D brawler, Shank 2, finally arrives on Steam for Linux. After the official release of Steam client last year, Valve created waves by finally making the Steam client available in Ubuntu Software Center for free download just a few days ago. Barrage of games went on SALE for a full week to celebrate the occasion and now, porting of more games have been completed. Apart from Shank 2, Waking Mars and Kentucky Route Zero have also been ported to Linux and is now available on Steam client. 

There is no dearth for good quality music players in Ubuntu. Even the default Rhythmbox is pretty darn good. But how many of those music players can be considered as good-looking? It is a tricky question since looks are very subjective. Anyway, here's a collection of 6 best music players for Linux which I think are among the most good looking alternatives out there. 

This has to be the find of the day. I was skeptical about the relevance of a full-fledged voice recognition application in a desktop OS like Ubuntu. But all that changed once I saw the video demonstration of the same. Not only does the app looks awesome, it is tightly integrated with Ubuntu's default notification system. If the app is going to be even half as good as shown in this demo video, that itself is a good enough reason to be excited about it. 

Ubuntu is on a roll. Barely a month and a half after the official unveiling of Ubuntu for Phones, Canonical has just revealed their next flagship product, dubbed as Ubuntu on Tablets. With the introduction of platforms tailor-made for phones and tablets now, Canonical have made their intentions very clear. Ubuntu is not going to be an also-ran. And they are going to compete head-on with the mighty Apples and Androids with their one-experience-across-devices model which already include regular desktops apart from phones and tablets, and even TVs later on. 

Several UI elements of Ubuntu Phone OS were instant hits across the web when it was first introduced to the public. And like its desktop counterpart, one of the most distinctive feature of Ubuntu Phone OS which sets it apart from the crowd was its left mounted, vertically placed launcher. Now here comes a new app which tries to recreate a similar launcher in Android OS. The app is called Glovebox and it has a free version to play around. 

KDE's Spark Tablet running Plasma Active user interface was quite a phenomenon during CES 2012, though there was no trace of it during the just concluded CES 2013. Only recently, we showcased a video of Ubuntu 13.04 running on a multi-touch device, now here comes a new one featuring KDE Plasma Active running smoothly on a Nexus 7 tablet.

This has to be the biggest headline for the month. Gaming on Linux will never be the same again. It all started with rumors, which hinted at Valve's sudden change of mind and its new found love for Linux. This culminated with the eventual release of Steam for Linux client. And now, the Steam Client is available for download directly from Ubuntu Software Center. To commemorate the occasion, Valve is conducting Steam for Linux celebration sale with as much as 75% off on some of the most popular games! 

Freeing up disk space in Ubuntu might be easy. I haven't thought much about doing the same in Android yet though. Clean Master not only has one of the cleanest of designs, it works really well and the app itself is completely free too.

Ubuntu 13.04 Raring Ringtail is still in its alpha state, while its multi-touch capabilities are probably in a very early pre-alpha state. So you can't expect much from a video featuring Ubuntu on a multi-touch screen. Still, worth a watch. 

Ever since Canonical introduced Unity desktop, there was no dearth for user-contributed ideas. Some of them were really good too. But over-time, things have changed so much about Unity that most of those mockups became irrelevant. Now, here's a new one that recently came to our notice. Some very good suggestions to improve Unity launcher further.

Gaming on Linux is really taking off. Half-Life and Counter-Strike: Source officially arrives on Steam for Linux client and those hugely popular game titles are now playable on Linux!

January has come to an end and the highlight of the month was undoubtedly, the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) held annually at Las Vegas. With each new events featuring latest and greatest from the world of consumer electronics, Linux and products based on it are becoming more prominent than ever. This year's CES was no different. Here's a quick roundup of 5 very unique Linux based devices introduced during CES 2013.

Steam's January 2013 hardware and software survey results are out. And OS market share on Steam is already showing signs of changes. Barely two months old Ubuntu on Steam has grabbed more than 1 percent market share with almost non-existent marketing push from Canonical (VALVE did some advertising though). Signs of big shifts to come? We'll see.