Mobile Studies Collaboration continues in Hungary - and starts in Germany

The research collaboration between the Institute for Philosophical Research of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences and T Mobile Hungary that spawned "Seeing, Understanding, Learning in the Mobile Age" (see UN story: Life in the Mobile Age) launched the book of the conference last month in a flurry of predictions about the direction of telephony and the study of mobile phones.

Philosopher Kristóf Nyíri, the institute's director, coined the term 'mobile studies', arguing that the interdisciplinary research that is a feature of mobile phone studies has now become a discipline in its own right.

'The next challenge is 3G and data transmission, whereas six years ago when the conference series began, it was SMS and demonstrating that the phone was not just for speaking,' he said. T Mobile Hungary is just in the process of offering a HSDPA (High Speed Downlink Packet Access) service with download speeds of up to ten megabits per second (mbps) for users of mobile phones, or portable computers equipped with card phones.

He was also able to give news of next year's conference, which takes convergence as its theme. Voice-over IP is going to change people's attitudes to phoning again, away from mobiles and back to the internet, argued the team. This focus comes as T Mobile Hungary merges with the Hungarian fixed line telephone company Magyar Telekom.

While T-Mobile Hungary's Chief Deputy General Manager István Maradi stressed that the institute's work did not lead directly to specific products or innovations, it is clear that the collaboration continues to cross-fertilise, with developments at the telephone company reflected in the research agenda of the social scientists. In turn, the company provides an unusual opportunity to observe these developments at close quarters and over an extended period.

Meanwhile, Deutsche Telekom in collaboration with the Technical University of Berlin is following suit. It has set up a new corporate research and development centre - Deutsche Telekom Laboratories - in Germany's capital Berlin. 'The mission of Deutsche Telekom Laboratories is to explore and develop new information and communication technologies that lay the foundation of Deutsche Telekom's future products and services,' says the company.

Deutsche Telekom Laboratories comprise an application-oriented Innovation Development Laboratory and a technology-oriented Strategic Research Laboratory. As a joint venture between a company at the cutting edge of information technology and a leading German research university, Deutsche Telekom Laboratories also intend to offer an a combination of academic freedom, practical focus, and the resources of major corporation.

Deutsche Telekom Laboratories are housed on the main campus of the Technical University of Berlin with about 30,000 students and several research institutes working in various areas of information and communication technology and is being built up from scratch.

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