Nokia’s science that changed your world

ESPOO, Finland – You’ve seen how Nokia Research Center celebrates 25 years of innovation that has changed the lives of billions of people… by introducing concepts like GEM and HumanForm that will influence the next few decades. They also made this video, narrated by Harry Potter Dumbledore star Michael Gambon, to remind us of the game-changing impact this creative group of scientists has had on the mobile technology industry and the way people communicate.

Nokia Research Center explores new frontiers of mobility and solves scientific challenges so that Nokia can bring you the mobile experiences of the future.

Founded in 1986, NRC is Nokia’s corporate research arm and from its beginnings in Helsinki, it has established laboratories worldwide, at leading universities, research institutions and industrial partners.

Now, as well as Finland, NRC’s global research network is based in five main labs with 500 people operating from 12 locations worldwide in America, the UK, India, China and Africa.

Over the last 25 years, the center helped Nokia to make market-changing innovation, including:  the first handheld mobile (1987), the first digital GSM call (1991) and internal antenna (1998, Nokia 8810), the first commercial SMS services (1993), the browser technology that brought the web to our mobiles (1997), the first 3G call (2001), Wi-Fi access (2007, Nokia N95) and HD quality calling (2009).

Nokia NRC spokeswoman Fred Slezak said: “The world would, quite simply put, be a different place today if it were not for some of the technological developments which have come out of the Nokia Research Center.

“NRC has been behind some of the fundamental advances which we today take for granted today, ranging from the first handheld mobile, to internal mobile antennas to the first device to access WiFi internet.”

And because of its global spread, Nokia is able to invent solutions to challenges posed by differing demands from people and their mobiles all over the world.

Fred added: “Nokia Research Center has 12 labs around the world across four different continents. By understanding the wide variety of cultures, environments and skill-sets across these diverse geographies, Nokia Research Center creates innovations that make a difference.”

And Nokia Research Center is continuing to drive innovation which is changing the way we communicate with one another.

“From context-aware computing to nanotechnology, Nokia Research Center is at the forefront of technological break-throughs which will change the way we interact with the world around us for years to come,” said Fred.

You only have to look at some of our previous posts to know this.

Conversations has been given exclusive access to some of the leading figures of the Nokia Research Center and will be bringing you a series of fascinating interviews over the next few weeks. For example, now a top Nokia scientist is predicting a telepathic phone.