Nokia Hollywood Lab Inks USC Deal

Nokia Research Center (NRC) Hollywood)–whose opening MobilizedTV reported on–just announced that it’s inked a “research collaboration framework agreement” for “advanced mobile user experiences” with the University nokiaresearchcenter of Southern California (USC). The deal marks the first university to enter a formal collaborative research agreement with the new Hollywood-based Nokia Center. This umbrella agreement is intended to allow the two entities to collaborate on multiple projects aimed at the mobile experience, with a streamlined process for commercializing any resulting inventions.

MobilizedTV had a chance to speak with NRC Hollywood director Rebecca Allen on the significance of this recently signed deal. Allen says that the first project that NRC Hollywood and USC are working on relates to Augmented Reality, a topic she’s worked on before during her tenure as a senior research scientist at the MIT Media Lab Europe augmentedreality and as “3D visionary” at Virgin Interactive Entertainment.

More specifically, USC and Nokia will focus on new vision-based Augmented Reality tracking and content recognition techniques, for use on mobile platforms. Augmented Reality supplements a user’s view of the real world with 3D computer graphic objects, providing a real-time, interactive and intuitive means of accessing and displaying spatial information. Where virtual reality immerses a user completely in an artificial world, augmented reality lets that user go about normal life, seeing the real world with additional information superimposed on it.

“Augmented reality is a general term and people are using it to cover many things,” says Allen. “It can cover text information, pointing arrows, an apparition. Some areas are applicable to information, others to entertainment, which is the part important to us at the lab.”

According to Allen, USC has already been at work on improving the technology to make Augmented Reality–both as a virtual image in physical space and as a way to overlay information–viable.

But there are still limitations. For Augmented Reality to become, well, a reality, mobile devices have to become more powerful. They are increasingly becoming closer to a laptop. “But the processing power [for Augmented Reality] isn’t quite there yet,” she says. “We’re working within the constraints. There are some things we can’t do or we have to approach in another way.”

At the same time, notes Allen, Nokia is coming out with “more and more powerful devices.” “USC will work to get the most from these devices,” she says. “We’re trying to make sure, on Nokia devices, that what’s done on the R&D level can be moved to the handset.” Current demonstrations now depend on more powerful computers or additional devices.

An on-board digital compass and gyroscope–with much finer resolution than GPS–are required to make Augmented Reality work, she says. If you plan on placing an apparition in front of a door, GPS may get the street right, but won’t have the abilty to precisely place it in front of the right door. “We’re putting our attention to building the robust technology on a mobile device that underlies Augmented Reality,” she says.

The actual implementation of Augmented Reality might seem a bit fuzzy, but Allen promises it will go from the ghostly apparition to a real application in a fairly short time. “My goal is, by early 2010–and I hope it’s sooner–you’ll start to see some of the work in devices,” she says.

As to the commercialization of the work done by USC and NRC Hollywood, financial details were not disclosed. The USC Stevens Institute for Innovation facilitated the licensing transaction. Other USC departments will be involved in the actual research, including the computer science department and the USC School of Cinematic Arts’ Interactive Media Group.

Nokia has a history of creating research-based alliances with academic institutions. Other Nokia Research Centers exist at the Georgia Institute of Technology, University of California at Berkeley and Stanford University. Allen reports that Nokia is also “working towards a framework agreement” with its cross-town athletic rival, the University of California at Los Angeles.

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