Nokia, MIT Open Joint Research LabNokia, MIT Open Joint Research Lab

Nokia and MIT officially opened a joint research effort Friday and released sketches on projects they will jointly develop.

"Our mission is to explore and develop technologies that will be available in the marketplace in five to ten years – not just novelties, but technologies that will see mass market demand from consumers and enterprises," said Bob Iannucci, head of Nokia Research Center, in a statement.

At MIT, the Nokia unit is teaming up with the university's Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL). Rodney Brooks, director of CSAIL said he is confident that the joint research will eventually be deployed throughout the world. Nokia, which chiefly promotes the European-developed GSM mobile phone standard, is the leading handset supplier boasting a worldwide market share of more than 30 percent. The Finland-based firm is also a major provider of mobile telephony infrastructure.

In opening the research facility, Nokia and MIT pointed to its Project Simone (Spoken Interaction for Mobile Networked Ecosystems) as an important joint effort. Investigators are developing spoken language interfaces for mobile users. The effort is concentrating on English and Mandarin-based processing.

Another joint effort, MobileStart is aimed at developing written language applications for mobile devices while MyNet/UIA examines ways for users to securely connect over the Internet. A joint effort called Asbestos explores mechanisms to limit information from being inadvertently exposed.

Other programs will develop Web services and improve energy-efficient hardware for mobile devices.

The Nokia Research Center will consist of 20 researchers from Nokia and 20 from MIT and be managed by a joint steering committee. Dr. James Hicks from the Nokia Research Center will be director of the joint operation at MIT.