Nokia, Intel to work on 3-D for mobiles

Helsinki:  Nokia Oyj and Intel opened a joint research centre in Finland that will focus initially on developing 3-D software and "virtual worlds" for mobile devices.

Applications could include gaming, meetings in virtual worlds, manipulation of real-world objects, and video calling with the use of holograms, they said in a teleconference yesterday. The Oulu centre will employ about "two dozen" people and the partners have committed to it for three years, they said.

Technologies from the centre "will be implemented in products in small steps over a longer period of time," said Mika Setaelae, the Finnish company's director of strategic alliances.

Nokia, the world's biggest maker of mobile phones, is seeking to develop more appealing applications in its effort to take on Apple's iPhones in the smartphone market. The company joined last year with Intel, whose chips power 80 per cent of personal computers, to form a partnership that includes developing new devices and fusing their Linux-based operating systems into a version called MeeGo.

Nokia hopes that 3-D will enable more natural user interfaces that "flatten out the challenging density of information that's presented to the individual, so that you're not taking endless walks through the device," Nokia Chief Technical Officer Rich Green said at a briefing in Oulu today.

Nokia, based in Espoo, Finland, fell as much as 1.6 per cent and traded 1.1 per cent lower at 7 euros as of 11.29am in Helsinki, giving the company a market value of about 26 billion euros (Dh122 billion). Intel slipped 1.1 per cent to $18.70 in Nasdaq trading yesterday.

Intel also licenses mobile-phone technology from Nokia. The new centre will develop MeeGo software for smartphones and other platforms, the companies said.