Nokia’s OZO Virtual Reality Camera is Now Available in the European Market

Nokia Technologies has launched OZO professional VR camera in the European market. The company also announced new post-production partnerships with Deluxe and the Foundry to advance end-to-end solutions for creating VR experiences.

“OZO enables the creation of immersive virtual reality experiences that actually move us emotionally, and move us to act.” said Ramzi Haidamus, president of Nokia Technologies.

“Through OZO we can feel more present in the lives of people we’ve never met, and widen the circle of empathy in ways we could never have imagined before. Technology that moves us this deeply is technology that moves us all forward.”

The new partnerships will facilitate the content production workflow.

Deluxe will offer high quality post-production services for OZO VR content, including editorial, stitching and color. Deluxe will also harness the talents of more than 3,000 global artists in the Deluxe Creative Artist Group, including premier talent from Company 3, Method Studios and StereoD, to support VR experiences created with OZO.

The company also announced that post-production software tools from London-based The Foundry, including NUKE, will soon support 3D content created with OZO.

The launch event, hosted at London’s indigo at the O2 arena, featured a live broadcast 360 VR concert from band John Bull and the Bandits, who played 11 kilometres away at London’s The Park Plaza Westminster Bridge Hotel. Enabled by technology from partners Elemental Technologies and Akamai, the demonstration highlighted OZO’s unique ability to provide a totally immersive live experience to viewers, allowing them to put on a VR headset and be transported to another location.

“Our history as a technological innovator, specifically our pre-eminence in the 3D and VFX arena, make Deluxe an ideal partner for Nokia’s VR initiative.” John Wallace, CEO of Deluxe said.

“Our collaboration with OZO allows us to provide high quality post-production rendering to create the highest level of VR experiences. We are tremendously excited by the capture capabilities of the OZO for the professional broadcast community — the first time a dedicated camera has been developed for this sector.” he added.

Simon Robinson, co-founder at The Foundry, said: “The Foundry believes Nokia’s OZO camera is an important step for professional content creation in VR. We’re very pleased to be collaborating directly with the OZO team to find solutions to some of the challenges presented by VR content, and deliver new tools to achieve the highest fidelity that the camera can offer.”

Nokia Launches OZO Pioneer Program for Innovative Virtual Reality Content

Nokia Technologies is launching a new program to allow innovators create virtual reality experiences that demonstrate the full potential of the medium.

The program is open to applications and purchases through April 30, 2016. The participants will create content using the OZO professional VR camera. They will create a 1-minute demo clip and also participate in workshop sessions with Nokia Technologies teams and other content creators to share their experiences in creating VR content.

The participants will be offered a USD 15,000 discount on their purchase of OZO (EUR 15,000 in the European region).

Paul Melin, vice president of digital media at Nokia Technologies said: “Virtual Reality is the next frontier in storytelling, and OZO is designed to provide professional content creators with an innovative solution to produce great VR experiences.”

“Nokia wants to help drive the creation of content that demonstrates the possibilities of this medium in collaboration with innovators at the cutting edge of VR production, and the Pioneer Program is designed to tap into the full creativity of the VR community.”

Nokia Introduces Significant Expansion of Its 1830 Photonic Service Switch (PSS) Portfolio; Ushers in 100G Transport Services Era with New Programmable Silicon Chipset and Next-generation Optical Networking Systems

Nokia has introduced a major expansion of its 1830 Photonic Service Switch (PSS) portfolio, quadrupling optical fiber capacity to more than 70 terabits per second to address increasing network data traffic demand.

The enhanced 1830 PSS family is centered around the Photonic Service Engine version 2 (PSE-2) from Nokia Bell Labs and doubles wavelength capacities and wavelengths per fiber. As a result, operators get a platform to efficiently deliver the 100G transport services that customers are demanding.

“By operating the world’s leading Internet exchange with peak traffic of more than 5 Terabits per second, DE-CIX is seeing an increased need to dynamically interconnect 100G router ports to handle our changing bandwidth needs.” Said Daniel Melzer, CTO of DE-CIX.

“We are excited to see Nokia introducing the optical innovations of the 1830 PSS 500G Muxponder, which can be reprogrammed quickly to multiple transport wavelength capacity and distance configurations. This unprecedented flexibility on a single optical line card will deliver a highly cost-effective solution that can support both raw capacity at 500G and maximum long haul distance at 200G.”

Ron Kline, Principal Analyst, Intelligent Networks at Ovum, said: “According to our research, service provider adoption of 100 Gigabit Ethernet is expected to drive growth of Core IP/MPLS routers to roughly $3.6 billion by 2020.”

“This, in turn, will fundamentally transform operators’ networks as they look for solutions to handle this massive capacity increase in increments of 100G. Nokia has addressed this trend with its next-generation PSE-2 powered portfolio. The PSE-2 innovations deliver both scale and flexibility across every layer of the optical transport network.”

Sterling Perrin, Senior Analyst at Heavy Reading, commented: “Nokia has come out with a powerful combination of innovations aimed at increasing capacity while also adding flexibility and improving efficiency in optical transport networks. More significantly, these are not just technologies, but commercial products that are being rolled out right now. While each of the PSE-2 advancements is important on its own, it is really the flexible combination of features – covering 100G to 200G to 400G and from metro to long haul and ultra long haul applications – that makes the PSE-2 announcement so compelling.”

Sam Bucci, head of optical networking at Nokia, said: “When we introduced the industry’s first single carrier 100G solution in 2010 we became a leader in optical network transformations, a position that was further solidified when we released the first programmable 100G/200G line card. With the launch of the PSE-2, our 500G Muxponder and the 1830 PSS-24x, we are again at the forefront of innovations, leading the way to 100G client services being the currency of modern optical networks. Thanks to the optical innovations of Nokia Bell Labs we are able to keep operators ahead of today’s aggressive bandwidth demand curve.”

Nokia’s OZO Virtual Reality Camera is Now Available through Resellers

Nokia’s OZO virtual reality camera is now available in the U.S. and Canada through the company’s first three authorized reseller partners – Off Hollywood, AbelCine, and Radiant Images.

OZO, launched in November 2015, is the world’s first virtual reality camera designed for professionals and created by Nokia. It has been designed to improve the virtual reality creation process for professionals by making content easier, faster, and more affordable to create. Reseller partners will now make OZO available to more customers across multiple vertical markets, including filmmaking, entertainment, marketing, new media and interactive content.

OZO is available for sale directly through OZO.nokia.com.

“We are excited to announce OZO’s availability in the U.S. and Canada through three retail and rental facilities.” said Guido Voltolina, Head of Presence Capture, Nokia Technologies.

“AbelCine, OffHollywood, and Radiant Images are vital to helping OZO reach the professional VR creation audience, especially in the primary markets they play in. We have carefully selected these first three partners because of their expertise in the space, their relationships with our core customers and their affinity with our vision for VR. We look forward to partnering with them to connect creators with OZO.”

AbelCine is a major provider of products and services to the production, broadcast and new media industries. Originally founded in 1989 as a film camera service and repair company, the company creates technology of all types easier for content creators to understand, access and employ. In distributing OZO, AbelCine is now able to extend this ease to VR content creation.

AbelCine offers a variety of cohesive services backed by the knowledge, experience and support that creatives need at all stages of production to achieve their vision on time and within budget. Headquartered in New York City, with offices in Burbank, CA, and Chicago, IL, AbelCine’s nationwide footprint serves as an ideal distribution ground for OZO.

OffHollywood is a specialist in 4K, 3D, and virtual reality, using its knowledge to support and execute the most technically complex and demanding projects in cinema, TV, and interactive content.

Nokia is the Winner of Vodafone Group Responsible Supplier Award for 2015

Nokia has won Vodafone Group’s Responsible Supplier Award for 2015. Nokia received the award at the operator’s annual Supplier Awards ceremony in Amsterdam.

The award recognizes Nokia’s high ethical and sustainability standards and marks the culmination of the investment Nokia has made in employee training on its Code of Conduct, ethical business practices as well as the Nokia Life Saving Rules program.

Nokia has been a strategic supplier of networks and services to Vodafone Group across Europe, the Middle East, Africa and Asia Pacific for the past 20 years. The company works closely with Vodafone and all of its customers to create a safer and more sustainable work environment throughout the industry.

Petteri Rantanen, Vice President, Health, Safety and Security, Nokia, said: “This award is a great recognition of our commitment to upholding the highest standards of ethical business conduct in all our activities. We operate in some difficult and challenging environments, so in addition to ethical conduct, health and safety is a priority for Nokia.”

“I congratulate Nokia for its outstanding performance in safety, sustainability and ethics. They exceeded our expectations and we look forward to continuing our work together to make safer work environments and a more sustainable industry.” said Detlef Schultz, Group Supply Chain Management Director at Vodafone.

Michele Fanti, Head of Sales, Mobile Networks at Nokia, commented: “We are proud and honored to receive the award for the most responsible supplier from Vodafone. We place great importance on our code of conduct and we are delighted to be recognized in an area that is so fundamental to how we do business.”

Nokia Threat Intelligence Lab Study shows Smartphones now Account for 60% of Malware Infections in the Mobile Network

A new study conducted by Nokia Threat Intelligence Lab shows that in the mobile networks, smartphones now account for 60% of the malware activity observed in the mobile space.

The report also observed an increase in iOS-based malware, growing sophistication of Android malware and the rising threat of mobile ransomware.

Nokia Threat Intelligence Report suggests that due to a decrease in adware activity, the overall infection rate in mobile networks declined from 0.75% to 0.49% on Windows-based PCs connected to the Internet via a mobile network in the second half of 2015. Adware is software that automatically displays or downloads advertising material (often unwanted) when a user is online. In the same time period, smartphone infection rates increased and now account for 60% of infections detected in the mobile networks.

For the first time since the report began, iOS-based malware – including XcodeGhost and FlexiSpy – is on the top 20 list. In October 2015 alone, iPhone malware represented 6% of total infections.

“Security is a very real concern for any device with an IP address, be it Android, iPhone or even a Windows PC connected to the mobile network. While Android infections continue to rise and become more sophisticated, the Nokia Threat Intelligence Report from late 2015 was the first time we saw iOS malware make our top 20 list, with XcodeGhost being the fourth most prevalent malware detected.” said Kevin McNamee, head of the Nokia Threat Intelligence Lab.

“We also saw a rise in a variety of ransomware apps that try to extort money by claiming to have encrypted the phone’s data. Nokia’s security approach reaches into the network to stop malware before getting to the device itself and before damage can occur.”