Future Technologies

Dabbling in alchemy in pursuit of greater performance with less power

By Mike on 09 June 2009

Berkeley, USA – There’s no disguising the fact that we’re shameless fans of what the teams over at the Nokia Research Center do, applaud NRC’s open innovation approach, and hurl praise at its many collaborators and radical thinkers. From recent developments such as Nokia Locate Sensor and indoor positioning trials to battery bending and face sketching, this is one of the most exciting divisions within Nokia, so it’s great to see another collaboration and new laboratory pop up recently in Berkley, California in the USA.

The new Nokia Research Center in Berkley is tasked with some fascinating projects coupled with important ambitions that could help alter (for the better) what our devices are capable of achieving in the future. One of the core areas of research is the alchemy of squeezing better performance from mobile products using less power consumption. Read on to find out more about this and the other fields of research that will be explored at Nokia’s latest research facility.

Increasing the performance of a mobile device while lowering power consumption grants the obvious benefit of enabling you to do more with your phone for longer before it starts gasping for more juice. And the team at NRC Berkley will also be investigating how to achieve this goal in both active and idle modes. One of the other main areas of research is accelerating the mobile web browser and runtime environments. The benefit of this research to many folk in emerging markets, and in particular, people using devices in rural areas where recharging a device can mean having to travel to the nearest town to get it plugged in and powered up could be significant, as Dr. John Shen, head of NRC Palo Alto and now also running NRC Berkley, explains:

“The results of these research areas can greatly improve consumers’ mobile device experience particularly in emerging economies where electricity is limited and access to the Internet is primarily or solely via the mobile device. NRC is pleased to provide a laboratory environment that will enable us and UC Berkeley to collaborate in areas that are important to both of us.”

Let us know what you think. Post your thoughts in the comments section below.

Photo from danielle_blue

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Anonymous Says:
June 9th, 2009 at 3:32 pm

Go on……..

mbrett Says:
June 9th, 2009 at 4:00 pm

How about having the user energy in put from button presses utilised to slight offset the energy useage of the phone acknowledging the button press.

I use solar power to recharge my phone when the suns available. Pitty I live in the UK. At least I get to use solar power 1 day per year. With global warming will come more solar power in the UK.

SoulBlade Says:
June 9th, 2009 at 7:48 pm

Wonderful yet again – how do you guys keep up with this creativity.
NRC is doing so much. Creating so many roads of possibilties for the world to choose from in the future of mobile devices.

“The new Nokia Research Center in (note typo.) Berkley is tasked with some fascinating projects coupled with important ambitions that could help alter (for the better) what our devices are capable of achieving in the future.”
In Africa, the only NRC present is in Nairobi, Kenya.- In a WHOLE Africa !! – a vast continent of possibilities and oceans of potential.
“The benefit of this research to many folk in emerging markets, and in particular, people using devices in rural areas where recharging a device can mean having to travel to the nearest town to get it plugged in and powered up could be significant.”

People in “Emerging Markets” huh ?! I think Nigeria, qualifies as one. Hmm,. last i checked all Nokia does in Nigeria is sell phones,advertise, and market. Yupe ! *Thats* pretty much all they do here. Nothing Research, conferences on mobile Dev., that sort of stuff.
We have lots of rural areas here in Nigeria , maybe Nokia could come down and do some research, so the mobile phones could be put to more use than people seemingly concieve them to be useful for here. But that doesn’t ring a bell to Nokia Nigeria.. NOoo, its all sell -sell -sell, advertise this and advertise that..
Take EPROM for instance, that has so much potential;and its presently bringing so much change in rural areas in Kenya; seems someone at the NRC in Kenya came up with the idea. Would be nice if Nokia Nigeria did something about that.
The most populous black nation in Africa; full of potential,ideas,and myraids of possibilities: and *ALL* Nokia does here is of 3 : Phone- Sales, Advertising, and *drum roll*.. marketing.. – how sad.

Even the Nokia Maps that’ll be out soon.. what are we Nigerians going to use it for ? Hmm.. maybe it’ll help roadusers watch out for bumps and portholes on the road. Help us avoid armed robbers in our districts, (Not a bad idea though) – but how many Nigerians will get phones with Nokia Maps present ? ;even without GPS – there isn’t exactly what you’d call an umlimtied data rate scheme offering from the Network Operators here (Network Operators + Nokia Nigeria is another story entirely). – So only phones with GPS ,. and probably with S60 present. okay.. just peachy. -and then comes an onslaught of more marketing of phones with GPS, Nokia Maps and S60 (which many Nigerians are clueless of here anyways) – what a very clever strategy Nokia. Hurray !! Nokia- 1, Nigerian People- 0.

And don’t even start me on *how long* it took Nokia to figure out that Nigeria needed Maps. *shivers*
Look at how simple creative ideas surrounding things like the ‘indoor positioning’ platform turned out to be so successful.. with alot of extensive reseach and study in the background though ,and all the other amazing stuff that have been coming out of the BetaLabs.
However, Nokia Nigeria + University Collaborations in Research; that concept does not seem to exist in Nigeria.

NRC is only one in Africa ??
“”NRC Africa is working with groups such as UNECA, Plan International, Slum Code, Makerere University (Uganda), University of Nairobi (Kenya), University of Cape Town (South Africa) to solve the unique African language, cultural, educational and infrastructure challenges that can all be improved through mobile technologies.”" (Courtesy: NRC Homepage)
So Kenya,Uganda,..umm South Africa,..and umm..
.. umm, Where is Nigeria in all of this ? . You guys just *had* to leave us out didn’t you ? ,. so you just push Nigeria to one side and limit your efforts there to just sales and marketing. We are not good enough for research studies and centers huh ?! – How innovative.

What ? Oh my ! You say your resources are overstretched ? limited ? Thats all rubbish. HOW many/much resources do you think you need to change a town ? huh ?!, a state ?, or even a country like Nigeria ? Some of the most potent resources you guys have – everyone else here has .. its littered walking on the streets in people homes,workplace, schools,even in the nigerian marketplaces..
..its in people HANDS !! : MOBILE DEVICES and PEOPLE are two of your most potent resources.
People have unimaginable ideas here: both to build and to destroy.. from little children here, some ideas are even on par with those designers at Nokia’s Labs.
…Nokia,. Harness the positive power in people and their ideas,in Nigeria, show them the potentials locked in their Nokia mobile phones.. How difficult can this be ?

Since no Nokia Nigeria executive/spokesperson will answer my e-mails (repeatedly sent for the past 2 weeks) – ‘they’, probably giving the cleverly overused excuse that their mailboxes are full- I might as well write my own post here (would love to add pictorial illustration as well; but i guess text will do) of what rubbish Nokia does in Nigeria, in contrast to what they really do in other parts of the whole (not enough time;maybe another day).
..
The N97 pops up in shops nex– by the way .. what’s the big idea of shipping to US/European countries first ? Where’s Africa on you guys priority list ?

Anyways, When the N97 comes up here,towards the end of the month ? (when the whole world would have gotten their’s long before): a new vigorous campaigning will begin of getting people to buy the (last year spec-ed) beauty. Then next will come the N86 8MP .. then the next colourful thing. N99 ?? or the Nphone ?
The whole N97 interface – some Nigerians will begin struggling to use;since it was built for the whole world minus Nigeria’s needs: What’s up with that anyways ?! – why can’t Nokia Nigeria pull together a community of developers, designers, and people with creative ideas to come up with an interface (not to mention unique services and applications to fill the obvious lingering void ) that is *tailored* for the Nigerian environment. This would be possible, if *they* did their research right … but waaiit *sacarstic* they DON’T DO Research Here *laughing*.. how bad can that be.
Nokia Nigerian executives so-so much love their *comfort zones* riding in their BIG Executive cars.. Why don’t you (Mr./Mrs. Exec) spend a week outside your offices for once and spend it in one of rural areas here – i know a very nice quiet town in Akure that you could camp out;it has a very crowdy labyrinth-like market to match – maybe you’ll see how many Nigerians are suffering and maybe you’ll understand.( or just get a money-back refund if your satisfied *lol*)

Don’t you think these devices can do more than just serving as “torchlight” for people at night. Don’t you see that these devices can bring greater positive change, in a poverty-problem swamped country like this, than what you take them for granted to be capable of ?
Oh wait.. *wink* Lets blame.. the government .. for Nigeria’s problem. “There not our’s, WE just came to sell our beloveth phones and work peacefullyl in harmony with nature and technology”..
That’s a really nice and touching story.. *sarcastic*

Don’t you guys think there are many of the problems in Nigeria can be solved with the ‘mobile device’ ? Or is it just another piece of fine engineering to you guys ?

In summary,
Stop wasting away these possiblities, in Nigeria, Nokia. Stop buring away these potentials.
Go beyond, the surface, Take these devices beyond the surface;help change our country and stop standing aloof from it – selling your phones; like your highly over-priced N97 – which i’ll be ,unfortunately, stuck trying to get first, just to tinker with the OS for my daily poweruse.

P.S Nokia: They just took light in my school while i was typing this,. you think you could install a solar/luna/aero light energy-converter into the N97 you’ll bring down here ?
P.S: Never mind they just brought back light.. for a brief period i suppose.

SoulBlade Says:
June 10th, 2009 at 1:21 pm

I guess my comment is kept in moderation huh ? Any admin. on site ?