The Dash will adjust to the user's preferred palette based on their wallpaper, and real-time blur effects will help the readability and presentation of overlay content.

"Both Nux in the case of Unity 3D and Qt in the case of Unity 2D have rich GL capabilities, and we'd like to make the most of whatever graphics stack you have on your hardware, while still running smoothly on the low end," Shuttleworth explained.

4. 2D vs. 3D

Finally, QML-based Unity 2D and GL-focused Unity 3D now share a significant amount of common code, Shuttleworth noted, adding that much of the design inspiration for Unity derived from gaming interfaces.

"We're now at the point where we can be confident that the Unity experience is available on the full range of hardware," he said, "from lightweight thin client systems made of ARM or Atom CPUs to CADstations with oodles of GPU horsepower."