I just got a quick, exclusive look at Ubuntu TV, Canonical's little CES 2012 surprise, running live off of a PC. Of course, the goal is to have this running embedded in the set itself (the Samsung we saw this on was off-the-shelf, and there are no announced partners), but the requirements are low enough that it shouldn't be much of a problem. The demo I saw was running off a standard nettop on an Atom processor (as power as Google TV asks for), but it'll work just fine on top of an ARM flavor of Ubuntu. Unfortunately, while Ubuntu TV is promising in premise and in UI concepts, it's only really a working prototype right now, just a few months in the works. While Ubuntu plans on having its own movie store, a full complement of apps, and just about anything else you'd want out of a smart TV, the demo is just a canned list of programming, a video player, and some pre-loaded trailers. Check it out below, and stand by for more details of Ubuntu's crazy plans to enter the TV space.

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