Nokia Bots Promises Autonomous Smartphone Learning [Video]

Last year I bemoaned the state of social networking on mobile devices, and suggested that smartphone software should focus more on intelligently offering up contextually-appropriate information than merely replicating the desktop experience.  At the time, I pointed to some ongoing research at Nokia Research called the Linked Internet UI Concept, which promised to learn from your use and attention and thus better serve up news on your friends and colleagues.  We're yet to see any public release of that concept, but Nokia Research have pushed out what could be the first step toward it: Nokia Bots.Video demo after the cut

Nokia Bots – which is initially available only for the Nokia N97 and N97 mini – consist of four intelligent background apps that track your habits and adjust various elements of the smartphone experience accordingly:

Of course, it's early days and the functionality is still relatively limited.  Still, as smartphones grow more powerful, there's no reason that they should rely on users to do everything manually; hopefully the autonomous apps will soon be able to take on more complex roles, such as automatically mapping out upcoming appointments or tracking the locations of friends and suggesting mutual gaps in your schedules when you could meet up for coffee.  You can download Nokia Bots here.

[via Nokia Conversations]