November 04, 2006
Nokia Opens US Mobile Apps Research Center
Palo Alto, California, is the home of the new Nokia Research Center. Nokia has a three-agreement with Stanford University to jointly work on research projects for "collaborative mobile computing and applications". The four areas that their research will focus on are:
- Context-aware content and communities.
- Wireless grids.
- Advanced user interfaces and visual media.
- Innovation radio and sensor networks.
Nokia recently bought an RFID company, and with research into wireless grids and sensor networks, it's possible that they will work on crowdsensing applications. In such apps, each mobile phone would have an RFID chip capable of sensing some environmental condition, such as moisture or heat. Each handset would be a node on a wide grid. If such apps are feasible they could revolutionize local/ regional weather reporting, possibly even traffic reporting.
The research center will initially employ 35 researchers, with plans to expand to 100 or more. Nokia recently introduced a new wireless protocol called Wibree, which is a low-power connectivity protocol designed for small objects and possibly mobile phones. Whether Wibree will play a role in the Palo Alto research center is unclear. They have also been planning VoIP on their line of mobile phones for quite some time.
[additional sources: Press.XTVWorld]
--
Did you enjoy this post?
