Nokia releases 'point and find' technology

April 2, 2009, 3:53pm PDT | Length: 00:04:41
Location, location, location. At the Web 2.0 Expo in San Francisco, Nokia Executive Vice President Anssi Vanjoki outlined his company's vision for the future of mobile computers based on its new map-based user interface. Vanjoki predicts that in the near future, people will no longer ask, "Where are you?" and your cell phone will reveal everything about your surroundings.

Transcript

Nokia releases 'point and find' technology

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Speaker: It is all about location. It's about social location. We have released a very exciting, new application on it's beta face, point and find, where just by pointing a cell phone, taking a picture will actually give you information about the object that you took the picture of. Thinking about the databases that are formed based on co-ordinates in the world, and the GPS location that we have on a device and an electronic compass in the same device will allow people to, just standing somewhere, use their own co-ordinate and the direction of the phone to indicate places, marrying reality with virtuality. For this, we need a completely new device. It's not a cell phone. Actually, it is a mobile computer. At the end, the user interface of such a computer becomes a map, a map that is not stationary. A map that is alive. A map that actually by zooming and panning, gives you the picture of everything on this planet, everything that you have an interest in, all your relationships. All this needs to happen in the way that the consumer is going to stay in control of all of his information all the time, and that's how we are building it. But just imagine the map. Everything on the map, and this here, in the picture, shows it like it is today. But when we just touch it, it changes. And it gives you the exact social location. Where you are. What's going on, and what is the true context of where you are. And that can be done for all and everything because they will all be there in the web. This will correctly create the next generation of web. Nokia is going to be a major contributor and player in enabling this new world to happen, just like we did during the 1990s, when telecommunications became mobile, and we started to call persons instead of buildings. Now we will be living in the media. We will extend our souls, our being, into the network. And in this way, the very first life gets richer. But all this needs quite intelligent new devices, and I would like to close my presentation by giving you a glimpse of what kind of devices we will be seeing that we'll all be wearing, moving to the future. So please, play the video.

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==== Transcribed by Automatic Sync Techologies ====

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Talkback Most Recent of 2 Talkback(s)

  • One device does it all?
    For time in again, device manufacturers want us to believe they can build an all encompassing all singing device. But the truth is users do want specialized devices and yes we want our devices to do more. Look at iPod still selling well despite iPhone and multiple attempts at music players from Nokia and others. This seems like one of those attempts. Also I didn't see how this is a new web technology. It is a great device technology and marketed that way will be much better than a new way of doing web.

    More at h
    ZDNet Gravatar
    rpaulsingh
    6th Apr 2009
  • On 'cartographic' interfaces....
    Back in the early 80's, just about the same time that the
    Xerox PARC windows paradigm was kicking around, a
    number of us were playing with an alternative 'cartographic
    interface' approach which would allow a user to maneuver
    through an interface landscape where the monitor was the
    windscreen on their 'vehicle'. One advantage was the
    ability to seamlessly move between novice ('fly through')
    and expert ('teleport') modes. The latter was where you
    associated a name with a 'location', invoked it to 'go there',
    and thereby generated your own 'menu'.

    The cool thing was that when you 'teleported' somewhere
    you knew where you 'were' in relationship to everything
    else based upon the mental schema that you had, so you
    could simply 'gain altitude' to revert to the 'cartographic'
    mode. Another was that navigating in space is an inherent
    pre-symbolic capability (like moving objects in a window
    interface) so users rapidly adapted to it and found it very
    useful and extensible. It is also language and largely age
    independent.

    The graphics and data communications speeds back then
    were pretty limited so we were pushing the envelope. Not
    the case now, and it would seem that this would be a
    natural interface for web based mobile and 'augmented
    reality' applications.

    'The more things change', eh?

    Rob Durst
    Technology and Business Development Consultant
    rob.durst@durstgroup.com
    ZDNet Gravatar
    robdurst
    8th Apr 2009

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