Nokia and Intel team up on open-source mobile 3D

 

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By Nicole Kobie

Posted on 24 Aug 2010 at 08:01

Nokia and Intel are teaming up again, this time to bring 3D interfaces to mobile devices.

The pair are following up their shared work on the MeeGo mobile operating system with a 3D-focused research project at the University of Oulu in Finland - making it the most northern of Intel's 22 research labs.

"3D and virtual worlds have the potential to improve mobile and internet interfaces," said Mika Setälä, director of strategy alliances and partnerships at Nokia.

The 3D work released by the two dozen researchers will be open source, the companies said. "As MeeGo is open source, the research results are to be published in an open-source way," said Heikki Huomo, the director of the Centre for Internet Excellence at the university.

The firms said there are no release dates or details of eventual products, with work only kicking off this month. "At this point it's too early to say specific timeframes or specific outcomes," said Martin Curley, director of Intel Labs Europe.

Curley said the research was meant to "complement" existing products, suggesting it would be worked into the MeeGo system. He noted that as Meego supports a wide-range of mobile devices, the research will develop products for a variety of screen sizes.

As the project is focused on user experience, the researchers are working on software. However, Nokia's Setälä said that partnering with Intel meant there was the "possibility to do something on the hardware side," but the firms had nothing to announce at the moment.

While Nokia is the market leader in mobile phone sales, it is generally seen to have fallen behind Google and Apple in the smartphone race.

"Nobody has a monopoly on innovation," said Curley. "This will stiffen the competition and raise the game for everyone."

Google also appears to be looking at 3D interfaces for its Android platform, after picking up developer BumpTop earlier this year.