sellis | 14 February, 2008 15:57

It was an evening of innovation, networking and entertainment. The Forum Nokia Innovation Party attracted a wide range of industry professionals to see and vote for the application they thought was tops for innovation.

Some of the best applications from around the world were on show at the Forum Nokia Innovation Cocktail Party 2007 held in Amsterdam in December 2007. A selection of 12 applications was short-listed for the event’s ‘Most Innovative Application of 2007’ award, with the winner being voted via SMS by the party’s 150 or so guests.

Competition for the top prize was fierce with innovation shining out from both the commercial and academic worlds. However, there could be only one winner, which turned out to be Reporter from Fromdistance of Estonia. This mobile journalism tool is a complete end-to-end platform for both professional reporters and citizen journalists that enables videos and images to be sent from a mobile device to the publisher.

The innovation lies in the application’s combination of good usability with efficient delivery of content to publishers’ content management systems. Ordinary smartphone users can send content to be used by the publisher of his or her choice. Furthermore, the quality of images and videos is not compromised during sending – publishers receive high quality user-generated content.

Speaking about his win, Jouko Vierumäki, CEO of Fromdistance said: “The standard of applications here is very high and presented really tough competition. We’ve shown that innovation can be profitable – they support each other.”

There was a tremendous range of applications being demonstrated on the night. Each was available for a hands-on demonstration as well as being presented to the audience in short video presentations.

The 11 runners up for the award were:

3DViva from InterGrafx

From China, this interactive, multifunctional Avatar application enables users to create three-dimensional avatars. At the party, CEO Charles Chiang said: “You can also invite friends to create their own avatar and share it with you so you can see the avatar when the friend calls. This event is a great opportunity to promote this really cool application in the West.”

Pocket Express from Handmark

The UK version of this personalized, on-device service from US company Handmark integrates news and information in an easy-to-use interface, that turns an ordinary mobile device into a personalized experience.

Vringo from Vringo

Vringo allows users to create ringtones from video clips, available for download or created by themselves, and share them with their friends and family. The clips then become ringtones that show when the recipient’s phone is called.

Phone Alone from Mobisophy technologies

Another Chinese entry, Phone Alone provides a remote control capability for devices that enable an answering service to be set up, or calls to be diverted to another phone, using intuitive voice-activated menus. So should a user leave their mobile phone at home, they need never miss any calls.

Share your mobile life from Bliin

This social networking application enables geo-tagged audio, text and video to be shared from a GPS-enabled handset, directly and in real-time. An online Google map is used to access the social community.

LocoMash from Lancaster University

A mobile location mashup, LocoMash enables users to geotag and collate their photos on a single web page to provide a location-based record of an event, instead of a more conventional time-based history. “You can then view the event by zooming in and out of the map and clicking on pictures to see what actually happened anywhere at the event.” says Dr. Reuben Edwards of Lancaster University.

MotionLens from Realeyes3D

Using the cameraphone as a motion detector, this application simplifies the navigation of maps, websites, images and other content by intuitively moving the phone. Representing Realeyes3D at the event, Katia Hilal said: “We have built an application that allows very smooth navigation and zooming just by moving your hand. Our mission is to make the cameraphone do more than just take pictures.”

Kyte from Decentral.tv

Kyte Mobile enables users to broadcast their pictures and videos to a Kyte channel for sharing with their friends. Using LifeStreams, polls and text, audio or video chat, users can also interact with viewers.

Xelnex from PSILOC

The Xelnex Voice Logger records mobile conversations in the background, tags them and encrypts and uploads them to a secure server. Aimed at professional users that need records of transactions, the application enables any authorized person to access the voice recording via the web.

Funny Cam Football from Technobubble

This Spanish games developer was showing how its movement detection technology through a cameraphone allows player physical interaction with games that can be shown on a larger screen such as a TV. The application detects the player’s body movements to interact with the game.

Rexplorer from ETH Zurich

This application combines a game with a sightseeing tour of Regensburg in Germany. In the game, tourists act as assistants to Professor Rex to help discover the city’s historical and mythological spirits located at 30 different locations of interest. “We’d love to extend this to other cities and we are in talks with some who have shown an interest. We are also talking to parties in the entertainment industry,” commented ETH Zurich’s Steffan Walz.

Moshing The Mobile Artist

A further demo at the party that was not part of the voting was MOSH, the content sharing site where members upload, distribute and manage content to be used on mobile devices.