Nokia (News - Alert) and the Swiss Federal Institutes of Technology in Lausanne and Zurich have announced a joint research program. Nokia Research Center will open a laboratory in Lausanne in June, in order to create a community that links researchers from Nokia and the two Institutes of Technology.

 

This is the spin: helping people benefit from a world where they are connected to each other, to the Internet, and also to information from the surrounding physical world. Access to the “Internet of Things” from mobile devices will allow people to collect information from their physical environment, filter it based on their location or preferences, and share with their friends or communities.

 

The initial joint research agenda will focus on pervasive communications: exploring new interaction experiences and technologies; services and applications based on the user’s context, such as location, and personal preferences; and Internet services and technologies.

 

“Nokia has already carried out a great deal of research in the field of pervasive communications, and sees the fusing of the digital and physical worlds as a key objective in mobility. We have chosen to work with the Swiss Institutes of Technology because of their expertise in this area,” said Dr. Bob Iannucci, Nokia Chief Technology Officer and Head of Nokia Research Center.

 

A personal aside: Around 1998, I visited Nokia’s Research Center and was surprised to see lots of Japanese cameras. Maybe you’ve guessed it — they told me that mobile phones would have cameras in a few years. I thought the engineers had been at the vodka. The marketing pitch was the idea of taking snap shots on holiday and e-mailing them to friends and family. They reckoned it would take off when electronic post was the same price as a postage stamp. Conclusion: Apple (News - Alert) may have given them a fright, but this is a very innovative company. One reason is the fact that Finland has the best education system in the world.