The findings of a unique study Storyplay: Reading with Young Children (and Elmo) Over a Distance show the potential of combining a traditional paper book, video conferencing technology and filmed video segments to facilitate family literacy activities.
The findings of the study conducted by Nokia Research Center, Sesame Workshop and the Joan Ganz Cooney Center at Sesame Workshop were unveiled today at the Breakthrough Learning in a Digital Age forum by Sesame Workshop President and CEO Gary E. Knell.
In the research, grandparents, parents and children used the Storyplay concept system together, enabling grandparents to read with their grandchildren from a distance. The full Storyplay report and video footage is available at http://research.nokia.com/projects/storyplay.
Nokia today announces a public trial at Kamppi Shopping Center in Helsinki Finland. In partnership with Kamppi Center Investments Oy (EFM Suomi Oy) Nokia will be testing consumer response to an indoor mapping and information service which also offers local retail promotions and vouchers via a mobile device.
The Kamppi indoor mobile service currently provides information about the shopping center, indoor maps which can be searched to pinpoint the location of shops or restaurants, as well as relevant retail information such as opening hours and discount vouchers. Anyone inside the shopping center can access the service by going to http://kamppi.nokia.mobi using the web browser on their mobile device. This service is being launched at the start of Kamppi Shopping Center’s spring promotion, Kampituspäivät, and offers the retailers a new way to interact with customers. Exclusive offers will also be available to those using the indoor mobile service.
“With this trial Nokia Research Center is making indoor location based services easy and accessible to shoppers with a web browser on their phone. By combining location information with promotions from the Kamppi retailers we aim to provide a compelling mobile offering. Later this year we plan to extend the trial to bring more customized information to the user,” said Hannu Kauppinen Head of Business Validation, Nokia Research Center.
“As the largest shopping center in central Helsinki, Kamppi is a great place to test the latest consumer marketing techniques. By working with Nokia we are offering our visitors even more this Kampituspäivät, with a new exciting way to explore our shops’, restaurants’ and services’ offers, all by mobile phone”, said Managing Director Tuomas Sahi for EFM Suomi Oy.
Several innovations from the Nokia Research Center (NRC) will be showcased at Heureka, the Finnish Science Center in an Innovation Finland exhibition on Sunday, November 30, 2008. The event will put a spotlight on a series of significant innovations from three Finnish companies. Eight demonstrations from the Nokia Research Center are among these.
The Heureka event aims to answer the question: how does an invention become innovation? To provide an insight into the question from a Nokia Research Center perspective, Petteri Alinikula, who heads the Core Technology Research in Nokia Reserch Center, will discuss innovation in NRC.
“Demonstrating eight innovations from the Nokia Research Center at the Heureka event is both a great opportunity for us to get our research work in the hands of the public and also valuable recognition of the cutting-edge research that we conduct. Our open innovation approach fosters the development of an incredibly wide variety of innovations, as these examples demonstrate”, said Petteri.
The spectrum of the eight demonstrations that the Nokia Research Center team will unveil to the public at the Heureka event is colorful. Many highlight the way that sensors (such as Global Positioning System (GPS) and accelerometers) are changing mobile devices by turning them into true interfaces between the user and their environment and thereby transforming the way we experience the world around us. Many of the demos are also available for download from Nokia Beta Labs.
The following demonstrations show a glimpse into innovation in the Nokia Reseach Center:
- Nokia Image Exchange: a combined mobile image gallery and web service for sharing and browsing images taken on a mobile device. Just snap and share!
- Nokia Friend View: a location-based service which lets people share their moves and moods on a world map from their mobile device and also from the desktop using a web browser.
- Mobile Video Conferencing: a conferencing service which enables users to bring together friends and family in a video conference – see and talk, all on one mobile device screen.
- Nokia Storm Detector: warns mobile device users about approaching thunderstorms via specific software on the mobile device which listens and reacts to the radio lightning caused by thunder.
- Nokia Carbon Calculator: automatically detects a mobile device user’s travel method, calculates carbon dioxide emissions caused by travelling and thus motivates users to reduce their carbon footprint.
- Near Field Communication (NFC): NFC will make the mobile device the most convenient means of payment, travel pass, building access and interaction with advertisements, just by touching an NFC tag with a device.
- Shaker Racer: introduces a new dimension to radio controlled cars by allowing the user to control a car via a mobile device, based on the user’s movements.
- Morph: leveraging nanotechnology in a completely new type of device concept, which is not only small and thin, but also transparent and stretchable and context aware by adapting to the environment.
The Innovation Finland event is held on Sunday, November 30, from 12 noon until 5pm and is free to the public. Petteri will be delivering a talk at the event at 2.30pm.
For more information on the Nokia Research Center, visit http://research.nokia.com
For more information on the Nokia Beta Labs, visit http://www.nokia.com/betalabs
For more information on the Innovation Finland event (in Finnish), visit http://www.heureka.fi/portal/1021
Truly unique in its accuracy, PEIR (Personal Environmental Impact Report) is an innovative tool which measures a person’s impact on the environment via their mobile device. Currently in its trial phase, PEIR was born out of a research collaboration project by the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) and Nokia Research Center (NRC) Palo Alto.
PEIR has been selected to appear as one of the new global innovations transforming the world at the WIRED NextFest event in Chicago, US, September 27 to October 12, 2008.
“PEIR is a completely new concept, which introduces a dimension of intelligence and new depth in comparison with the traditional carbon footprint calculators. It demonstrates novel capabilities by providing the user with personal information based on their lifestyle with details on how their daily behavior patterns affect the environment and the way it impacts them”, explains Péter Boda of Nokia Research Center Palo Alto, who leads the PEIR research collaboration with UCLA.
Via mobile devices, PEIR collects location and speed information which is fed to complex mathematical and environmental models on the server and correlated with GIS (Geographic Information System) data. This combination provides analysis on an individual’s environmental impact and exposure, visualized online either on an individual basis or as a community on Facebook widgets.
“PEIR is an exciting development which very clearly demonstrates the capability for mobile devices to act as gateways between the physical worlds in which we live, and the virtual information spaces that connect us. Additionally, PEIR has the capability to empower individuals and communities to act and influence others to act on the urgent environmental issue. Appearing at the WIRED NextFest is proof of such capability”, says Henry Tirri, head of Systems Research in Nokia Research Center Palo Alto.
More information on PEIR can be found at the UCLA PEIR page: http://peir.cens.ucla.edu
WIRED NextFest is held on from September 27 to October 12 in Chicago, US. http://www.wirednextfest.com