Intel and Nokia had been sittin’ in a tree since February, after they agreed to cross-breed their mobile operating systems and form MeeGo. Now they’ve identified the following front within the mobile wars: 3D interfaces.
Today’s announcement of the Intel and Nokia Joint Innovation Center doesn’t come with lots of hard details about what’s to come back, just the promise of ” interfaces which are more identical to interactions within the real world” through 3D. That suggests a more immersive experience, like that pictured above, or a hologram of the person on the opposite end of the line shooting up to your phone.
When we’ll see the fruits of those labors is an open-ended question; it’ll take several months simply to staff up the lab. But Intel and Nokia clearly recognize that MeeGo trails Android and iOS distantly, and are counting partially on 3D as being a gamble to leapfrog the competition down the road.
And while hardware’s not explicitly component of today’s news, the two companies are targeting a ” broad range of mobile devices” -basically anything that will run MeeGo -meaning phones and tablets will both be outfitted with an additional dimension.
The question remains though: even Intel and Nokia can stuff a 3D interface to your tablet-is that something we all actually want?
Intel and Nokia Create First Joint Laboratory
University Research Center Will Result in New User Interfaces and Experiences
NEWS HIGHLIGHTS
· Intel Corporation, Nokia and the University of Oulu have announced the establishment of their first joint research center.
· Some of the first objectives of the most recent lab is to create new and compelling mobile user experiences that leverage the rapidly increasing capabilities of mobile devices.
· The lab is the most recent member of Intel Labs Europe – Intel’s European Research Network.
OULU, Finland, Aug. 24, 2010 – Intel Corporation, Nokia and the University of Oulu officially opened the Intel and Nokia Joint Innovation Center today. It is going to employ about two dozen R&D professionals and become the newest member of Intel’s European Research Network, Intel Labs Europe.
Initially the lab will conduct research for brand new and compelling mobile user experiences which can leverage the rapidly increasing capabilities of mobile devices. Creating interfaces which can be more comparable to interactions inside the real world can enable experiences which can be more natural and intuitive, within the same way that modern games and films are more immersive by using realistic 3-D graphics.
The new lab is easily aligned with the MeeGo open source platform recently launched by Intel and Nokia. MeeGo provides the greatest flexibility for developing new 3-D experiences on mobile devices as much of the lab’s research activity may also be open source.
” The University of Oulu’s specialize in future telecommunications solutions in addition as electronics and photonics made it the appropriate location for the Intel and Nokia Joint Innovation Center,” says Justin Rattner, Intel chief technology officer and director of Intel Labs.
Another potential area of study could look at technologies that permit displaying a 3-D hologram of the person you’re speaking to on the phone, a capability only found in science fiction movies today. Consumers will feel more involved and engaged with their mobile experience than with current methods.
” 3-D technology could change the best way we use our mobile devices and make our experiences with them way more immersive,” said Rich Green, Senior vice chairman and chief technical officer, Nokia. ” Our new joint laboratory with Intel draws on the Oulu research community’s 3-D interface expertise, and through the years will lay down some important foundations for future mobile experiences.”
The lab might be located at the guts for Internet Excellence at the University of Oulu, and may work closely with the Oulu Urban Living Labs, which offer a distinct environment for sensor research, testing and piloting technological and social innovations. The Intel and Nokia Joint Innovation Center follows a successful industry and academia collaboration model equivalent to the ones of Intel Labs Barcelona and the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya in Spain, the Intel Visual Computing Institute and the Saarland University in Germany or Intel Labs Berkeley at the University of California at Berkeley within the U.s.a..
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