Nokia's mobile radar handset responds to movement, not emotion (video)

Seems like Helsinki's always got something interesting to show in its Nokia Research Center (NRC). Today's conceptual adventure involves radar, or RADAR (RAdio Detection And Ranging) if you prefer. Without going into too much technical detail, Nokia demonstrates a handset that uses electromagnetic waves to measure the speed of an impressively stoic Finn as he walks towards and away from a prototype handset that can identify the direction of movement. It also works through fabric to help turn typically mundane tasks such as volume adjustment into an aerobic art form. No really, see for yourselves in the video after the break.

[Brent1700 Posted Jan 27th 2010 4:45AM]

woah. ugly people alert!

[manifest3r Posted Jan 27th 2010 4:53AM]

damn, you could've at least photoshop the faces!

[Brad Hubbard Posted Jan 27th 2010 4:53AM]

I don't care what anyone says. Nokia builds the best phones on the planet, especially when you consider that they apparently do it entirely in a late 19th century wood shop.

Seriously, where in the hell are these guys?

[manifest3r Posted Jan 27th 2010 4:57AM]

Pluto

[GGG Posted Jan 27th 2010 5:01AM]

@Brad Hubbard

imo that's a Nokia museum, the company started as a lumber mill in the 19th century, look it up on wikipedia


The radar thing looks quite nice, it might have some very nice applications in the future. Helping with orientation in an augmented reality environment comes to mind.

[Jigsus Posted Jan 27th 2010 5:04AM]

@Brad Hubbard
Nokia was a woodmill in the 19th century. They've converted most old locations to museums or research facilities

[Brad Hubbard Posted Jan 27th 2010 5:16AM]

@Unverified / Jigus

Neat! Now I know. At least I spotted my woodworking tools correctly. I suppose that's something.

[Priutilov Posted Jan 27th 2010 5:21AM]

@Brad Hubbard

Amazing indeed! NOKIA is the best!!!!!!!!!!!!! Ever forever;)))

I still keep my old 6170 and N900!!!;))))

[ryydman Posted Jan 27th 2010 6:31AM]

@Brad Hubbard
Actually this demo session is held in the Wood Saha lab of Helsinki University Of Technology.

Don't understand why this was not held in the big computer sciense building next to this old Saha building.

There are also lot other cool demos going on in the Saha. Check out http://research.nokia.com/otaniemi_demo_house

[fighterfelix Posted Jan 27th 2010 7:49AM]

@Brad Hubbard

holy shit, this one's straight outta Dark Knight

[One Love Posted Jan 27th 2010 10:53AM]

Photobomb!

[timshundo Posted Jan 27th 2010 4:56AM]

Caption contest. Please.

[brokensticks Posted Jan 27th 2010 5:03AM]

@timshundo +1

[VTTony Posted Jan 27th 2010 10:16AM]

"Let's see this thing measure the speed of that buzzsaw over there!"

(No I don't hate Nokia products, but they are in a woodworking shop.)

[MGDdrinker Posted Jan 27th 2010 11:11AM]

@timshundo, Finally, a way to measure the speed of Nokia's stock decline. Badapa :)

[Kennykenken Posted Jan 27th 2010 5:00AM]

That girl is WAY too excited!

However, I'm interested to see what kinds of applications this could be used for.

[Jigsus Posted Jan 27th 2010 5:05AM]

@Kennykenken
Have you seen The Dark Knight? Yes... that kind of application

[Kennykenken Posted Jan 27th 2010 5:09AM]

@Jigsus : Or maybe Naomi Campbell could of used something like that to see how fast the cell phone was going when she chucked it at the housekeeper!

[MVMNT Posted Jan 27th 2010 5:35AM]

@Kennykenken thats a girl? What are they drinking there?

[Kennykenken Posted Jan 27th 2010 6:28AM]

@MVMNT - Yes, the creature holding the phone in the video is of the female variety. Either that or its a man with a "very slight" mammary gland issue.

[Lord Farkward Posted Jan 27th 2010 7:39AM]

@Kennykenken

She's nowhere near as excited as the dude. Just look at all that excitment oozing out of him

[Kennykenken Posted Jan 27th 2010 7:50AM]

@Lord Farkward I think he oozed too much...

[ewlung Posted Jan 27th 2010 5:01AM]

Apple1: Hei, look, Nokia made something nice ...

Apple2: Yeah, lets use it on our product

Apple1: Should we license it first?

Apple2: Nah ... no need, we will fight them in court :)

[n0ne Posted Jan 27th 2010 6:03AM]

@ewlung

Zing!

[airmanchairman Posted Jan 27th 2010 6:30AM]

@ewlung Just like the 80s, when a product came to the world in 3 stages:
1. USA announces its invention
2. USSR refutes this, saying JJ Ouspensky invented it years ago
3. Japan starts delivering it in boxes packets and crates worldwide.

So I'll wait for Apple to make sense, and bags of money, from this idea while Nokia sits on it...

[Johanu Posted Jan 27th 2010 10:04AM]

@ewlung Apple will apply for the US patent of the implementation on this, which they didn't invent.. Then, every product coming to the US won't have a nice feature, because of good old Apple..

[brokensticks Posted Jan 27th 2010 5:01AM]

That guys does not look happy walking back and forth... lol

[Dpierre Posted Jan 27th 2010 6:14AM]

@brokensticks lol...that dude is hella pissed

[brokensticks Posted Jan 27th 2010 6:23AM]

@Dpierre that picture just cracks me up...

[Sor1 Posted Jan 27th 2010 5:01AM]

Very interesting !!!! I don't see many uses for the "radar" but the volume control was cool.

[Yoric Hunt Posted Jan 27th 2010 5:04AM]

Wow, Nokia are getting desperate!

[Mr w00t Posted Jan 27th 2010 5:21AM]

@Yoric Hunt by inventing stuff they are desperate?

what about apple and all the "please look at me and my new creation that will hange the world"kind-of-begging???

cmon.

[patryktv Posted Jan 27th 2010 5:04AM]

Can't wait for all the court cases: "I was trying to turn the volume down on my phone..., I did not mean to hit that woman!"

[g1zm02k Posted Jan 27th 2010 5:06AM]

If you keep your phone in your trouser pocket does the swaying of your arm turn the volume up and down?!

[drh Posted Jan 27th 2010 5:07AM]

Was that a girl? ............. f**k me, I think your right :-)

I'm not sure about how useful this technology is, I mean when you watch the guy with the cap over the phone, having to clasp his hand over the top to stop the music blaring out!?!?!?

Embarrassingly, I recall having to do that when I have had a call in a meeting or somewhere where its been inappropriate, so why would I want to make a feature, heheheh.

[Brent1700 Posted Jan 27th 2010 5:09AM]

Fine. To make up for my ugly people comment... go to twitter.com/jason. this dude apparently HAS a tablet. pretty convincing too lol

[drh Posted Jan 27th 2010 5:35AM]

@Brent1700
There was nothing wrong with your ugly comment, I don't know why people down-ranked it, not only were you bang on the money, it was hilarious too.

I love the way the men looked like they were really thrilled to be put in front of the camera and the other person who we are assuming is a woman got excited they finally come up with something to let them out of the lab and interact with other people.

[bret Posted Jan 27th 2010 6:22AM]

Well, good luck to you guys wherever the guys are hunks like that woman.

[groen2 Posted Jan 27th 2010 5:13AM]

news just in: apple tablet has been CANCELLED.

in other news, they are going to name it after engadget,

iengadgettablet

:D

[Mr w00t Posted Jan 27th 2010 5:17AM]

Soon on an Apple product* near you.

*this technology was not licensed from Nokia but we decided too steal it anyway.

[spaz1 Posted Jan 27th 2010 5:33AM]

Hang on, this works on n95?? Sweet!

P.S. Give apple 3 years before they sue Nokia for using their RADAR patent.

[Ziyad B Posted Jan 27th 2010 5:43AM]

How's that for innovation?

[Mr w00t Posted Jan 27th 2010 6:35AM]

"...not emotion..."
american geeks making fun of european geeks...

[BurtonBytes Posted Jan 27th 2010 6:36AM]

Wow, there's some pretty ignorant comment posting going on here.

First off Nokia do make some great products and so does another little company in Cupertino.

Next the assumption that Apple stole Nokia IP is a joke. The simply fact is when Apple approached Nokia for a licence to use GSM tech Nokia deferred agreement until the iphone launched. At this point Nokia then demanded cross patent usage in addition to the charge for the licence GSM tech.

Nokia basically own GSM tech and have active agreements with pretty much every handset maker. I guess they just feared what Apple was able to accomplish and wanted a piece of the pie. Now I'm not an Apple apologist, quite frankly fair play to Nokia. They're a business and need to keep a competitive advantage and Apple was a threat, so they're obviously going to try and leverage a better deal for their licence.

Thus the world keeps spinning, night turns to day turns to night turns to day.

On a side note, this goes to show that R&D at Nokia is very active despite calls to the country and everyone is not downing bottles of Kopperberg and kissing elks.

[Eric P Posted Jan 27th 2010 6:53AM]

@BurtonBytes
Nokia did not demand crosslicensing first. They offered several different types of licensing and Apple said no to all of them. Including plain license where Apple would have bought the license with money (which was first of the offers by Nokia).

[Pdexter Posted Jan 27th 2010 6:55AM]

@BurtonBytes Thought it's much more than the GSM patents. Btw ITC started the Apple investigation based on Nokia request just yesterday.

The patents Nokia is fighting with Applethere are the most important about 10 implement patents that include antenna patents(where Nokia have been very strong in the years, Remember the time when the antenna was outside the device in GSM phones, well because of Nokia they aren't anymore and they where main players when WiFi was developed), UI patents, enegry saving in the device, lowering manufacturing costs, able to make smaller phones and antennas.

[Skobbolop Posted Jan 27th 2010 6:41AM]

haha.. what's up with the guy walking back and forth. he would NEVER have made it in an Apple Tech-demo like this...

[Eric P Posted Jan 27th 2010 6:57AM]

@Skobbolop
1) Since when have Apple demoed anything related to upcoming technologies? Apple & Nokia have totally different views to doing business & technology.

2) Your message tells a lot more about Apple than it does about Nokia (or the people working for Nokia)....

[Skobbolop Posted Jan 27th 2010 7:35AM]

@Eric P

1)I know they have different views on doing business, but if Apple DID show a demo like this he wouldn't be in it.

2) Exactly my point. I'm no Apple fan - far from it. I just think that Nokia needs to rethink how they want to be seen in the eyes of the consumer, if they want to compete with Apple...

In my opinion it's way to easy for Apple...

[Breuker14 Posted Jan 27th 2010 7:07AM]

I think there is a "she couldn't get nailed in a woodshop" joke in there somewhere