Nokia Unveils Future Trends in Mobile Tech

Nokia has unveiled plans for its next-generation mobile technology. It's not simply about mobile devices either; preference is also being given to operating systems and software. The plans were put forward at the 'The Way We Live Next' event, an exclusive briefing at the Nokia Research Center in Oulu, Finland’s northern technology hub.

"The world of mobile communications is changing at an ever increasing pace," said Tero Ojanperä, CTO, Nokia, in his keynote address. "To continue to stay ahead in this environment and to develop innovative new products and services that excite consumers, companies need to embrace openness on many levels."

"At Nokia, we work with experts in the academic, scientific and developer communities, and increasingly importantly, directly in interaction with our customers. Innovation can come from anywhere, and we need to have the tools and flexibility to respond to that challenge," he added.

At the briefing, Nokia delivered presentations on a range of topics, such as:
Web technologies driving innovation in mobile
Nanotechnology and solutions for the environment
The evolution of the Internet user experience
Mobile payments and banking using Near Field Communications
Future energy sources
Smart Connectivity and the future of wireless broadband

Nokia also demonstrated a variety of breakthrough technologies, including the following:

MOSH: A one-to-many distribution platform; a targeted channel for developers and technology leaders to publish applications and other content for mobile devices, to a global audience.

Widsets: A mobile Internet service with more than 3 million registered users and over 2000 widgets, which allows people to enjoy and share their favorite Internet content and to create and publish their own widgets in the spirit of Web 2.0.

Point & Find: An exciting new way to discover more about your surroundings, using the camera on your mobile device. The mobile device then displays relevant information about what you are looking at, fetching real-time information from the Internet.

Shoot to Translate: A demonstration using software that translates written characters into another language; the original text is captured with the camera on the Nokia multimedia computer and translation happens in real time.

Virtual worlds: In addition to previewing the first ever photographic exhibition taking place simultaneously in Second Life and the real world, Nokia showed how 3D virtual environments could be implemented on mobile devices to create an immersive user experience.

In addition, Nokia announced a relaunch of its Beta Labs site, with more interactive features. Beta Labs shares some of the new ideas that Nokia is working on and lets users help shape their future development.

Nokia also demonstrated Mobile Web Server, a beta lab application running on S60 smartphones. It allows a mobile device to function as an Internet server, making it possible for people to access content on their mobile remotely from a web browser on another device, or to allow other people to do so.

Mobile Web Server takes the development of Web 2.0 communities to another level as, rather than centralizing content from many people on a single site, it emphasizes decentralization as a way of creating another kind of community.