Nokia On The Apps Wagon: Finalists In ‘Calling All Innovators’ Competition Announced

As Nokia joined the rest of the mobile industry in seeing the power of the apps, back in 2008 they launched a competition offering $150,000 in cash to clever developers who could come up with programs to ‘help build a better world’. And sell more phones, I suppose.

The ‘Calling All Innovators’ drive received more than 12,000 developers from around the world and over 1,000 applications to Forum Nokia, the world’s largest mobile developer community, in the hopes of becoming the next breakout application.

Now the 11 finalists have been announced, and all have the potential to be pretty revolutionary in their own way. They are separated into 3 distinct categories:

ECO-Challenge – applications or solutions that can minimize mobility’s global environmental impact and enable consumers to make sustainable lifestyle choices that reduce their energy consumption and carbon footprint.

- GreenDrive (Europe/Middle East/Africa) - An application promoting fuel efficiency by sensing road conditions that influence fuel consumption, providing real-time driving directions for the shortest route in the fastest time allowable.

- Ticketek Mobile Ticketing (Americas) – An event-ticketing application that reduces paper consumption by allowing consumers to use a barcode stored on their phone to gain admission to events.

- Green Phone (Australia/India) – An application maximizing battery life through improved regulation of a phone’s backlight, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and charger power consumption.

- TigerMap (China) - An eco-friendly city guide application that makes public transportation easier, combining up-to-the-minute information with recommendations of the best restaurants, entertainment, hotels and shopping in more than 150 cities throughout China.

The other two categories follow!

Emerging Markets – This category focused on making improvements in the daily lives of millions in developing nations, calling on developers to create new mobile solutions for areas such as education, health data access, infotainment and agriculture.

-mPedigree (EMEA) – This application allows users to text (for free) a quality-authentication code found on the packaging of anti-Malarial and other medications to a verification agency, guarding against counterfeit drugs believed to be responsible for a large number of deaths, especially in the developing world.

- DigitallCS (Digital Internal Control System) (Americas) - With this application, agricultural co-ops can inspect the growing practices of their members and upload the data to a website for reporting and analysis in order to verify the growers’ adherence to standards that include Fair Trade Certified and Certified Organic.

- Nano Ganesh (APAC) – This application allows farmers in India to establish remote contact with distant, modem-equipped electric irrigation pumps, to check on power supply and pump operation without the need to travel long distances.

Technology Showcase: This category highlights compelling applicatons for individuals or communities that are focused on the end-user experience and are built using Flash Lite, Java, or open source technologies, and able to run on Symbian architecture.

- PhotoMap (EMEA) – This application digitizes and stores a photograph of any fixed public map taken with a camera phone for easy access, browsing and geo-referencing on your phone.

- kReader Mobile (Americas) – This multi-language text-to-speech application with cross-language translation capabilities uses the camera phone to digitize any book, letter, receipt or other printed document and translate the captured text into audio that is “read” back to the user. (Sounds like a competitor to the Zumbafone!)

- Neuscreen (APAC) – This application utilizes the drawing, touch-screen and camera functionalities of a Nokia N95 connected to a normal television set to track the motion of a simple pen light and enable “virtual” drawing, as well as projection and manipulation directly on the TV screen of images stored on the mobile device.

- X Dancery (China) - This application, fully optimized for the S60 5th Edition’s touchscreen UI (as seen on the Nokia 5800 XpressMusic) and motion sensor technology, and with advanced 3D-graphics rendering capabilities, analyzes any MP3 file to automatically generate a unique tempo-based game for each selected musical track.

All very exciting! With the big winners to be announced at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona on the 17th of February, we’ll be sure to get a good look at all the entrants and let you know who wins!

Tags: 5800 xpressmusic, calling all innovators, n95, Nokia, nokia apps