Nokia announced the finalists in its Calling All Innovators competition. Launched in September 2008, the contest called on developers to submit mobile applications with the potential to enhance and improve society. In all, Nokia named 11 finalists in three categories:
ECO-Challenge--Applications designed to minimize mobile technology's global environmental impact and enable consumers to more easily reduce their energy consumption or carbon footprint. The finalists are GreenDrive (EMEA), which promotes vehicular fuel efficiency by sensing current and impending road conditions that influence fuel consumption and offers real-time directions for the shortest driving route in the quickest time legally allowable; Ticketek Mobile Ticketing (Americas), which trims paper consumption by enabling consumers to use a barcode stored on their phone to gain admission to events; Green Phone (APAC) , which maximizes battery life via more efficient regulation of device backlight, WLAN, Bluetooth and charger power consumption; and TigerMap (China), which combines real-time mass transit information with recommendations on restaurants, entertainment, hotels and shopping in more than 150 Chinese cities.
Emerging Markets--Applications designed to improve daily life in developing nations--e.g., mobile solutions targeting education, health data access, infotainment or rural agriculture. The finalists are mPedigree (EMEA), which allows users to text a quality-authentication code on medication packaging to a provisioned mobile shortcode to guard against counterfeit drugs; DigitallCS (Americas), which enables farming co-ops to inspect member growing practices and upload data to a website in order to verify adherence to agricultural standards; and Nano Ganesh (APAC), which allows Indian to remotely contact with distant, modem-equipped electric irrigation pumps and monitor power supply and pump operation.
Technology Showcase--Applications designed to maximize the potential of any technology optimized for Nokia's Series 40 or S60 devices, including Flash Lite, Java, Python or open source. The finalists are PhotoMap (EMEA), which digitizes and stores photographs of fixed public maps taken with a camera phone for access, browsing and geo-referencing via mobile device; kReader Mobile (Americas), a text-to-speech app with cross-language translation capabilities that digitizes any book, letter, receipt or other printed document and translates the captured text into audio that is "read" back to the user; Neuscreen (APAC), which exploits the Nokia N95's drawing, touchscreen and camera functionalities to track the motion of a pen light and enable "virtual" drawing; and X Dancery (China), which analyzes any MP3 file to automatically generate a unique tempo-based game for each selected song.
According to Nokia, close to 1,000 developers entered the Calling All Innovators competition--the winners, to be named Feb. 17 during the Mobile World Congress 2009 event in Barcelona, will share $150,000 in cash and prizes as well as distribution opportunities.
For more on the Calling All Innovators finalists:
- read this release
- see this slideshow of application screenshots