Here's an interesting set of problems that Canonical (the firm behind Ubuntu Linux) is trying to address:

1. Ubuntu Linux mature stable operating system. Ubuntu Netbook Remix is a great alternative to Microsoft Windows on netbooks. Unfortunately, while many apps for Linux are identical to what is available for Windows (e.g., Firefox and Thunderbird), many others are work-alikes modeled after Windows apps (e.g., OpenOffice.org) that are useable but not spectucular.

2. The Google Android platform is not quite ready for netbooks. But, Android apps have the potential to explode like iPhone apps did last summer.

So, how do you combine the mature stability and fit-like-a-glove-on-netbooks Ubuntu Netbook Remix with the potential of very cool Android apps? According to this report from ars technica...

Canonical developers aim to make Android apps run on Ubuntu

My guess was that Canonical was using virtualization technology to do the job. They could, for example, use the technology categery originally developed by Parallels for their Mac virtualization engine to provide interoperability between apps running in a virtual machine and apps running natively under Mac OS X. However, it sounds like Canonical is using something else that is being called a simulator execution environment.

It sounds like this work is in the early stages. So, we probably won't see a consumer friendly solution for at least another 6 to 12 months.