US computer chip giant Intel and Finland's Nokia, the world's leading mobile phone maker, said Tuesday they had opened a joint research laboratory on Finland's northwestern coast.

Intel, whose processors power nearly 80 percent of computers worldwide, said in a statement the centre would "employ about two dozen research and development professionals."

The centre is hosted at the University of Oulu, which said the lab's research activities had "started gradually in August."

Intel said the lab would work on developing "interfaces that are more similar to interactions in the real world," with the aim of making the use of a mobile phone "more natural and intuitive, in the same way that modern games and movies are more immersive through the use of realistic 3-D graphics."

The company added another potential area of research "could look into technologies that allow displaying a 3-D hologram of the person you are talking to on the phone, a capability only found in science fiction movies today."

Nokia has been struggling in the smartphone segment, loosing market share to Apple's iPhone, and posting a quarterly net profit down 40 percent in July. It is set to launch its already delayed Symbian 3 platform by the end of the year.

earlier related report
3PAR gives Dell 3 days to outbid HP buyout offer
New York (AFP) Aug 24, 2010 - Data storage firm 3PAR on Tuesday gave computer-making giant Dell three days to revise its acquisition offer after rival Hewlatt-Packard made a superior bid.

HP announced on Monday a 1.6 billion dollar offer to purchase 3PAR stocks for 24 dollars per share in cash, representing a 33.3 percent premium above Dell's offer last week for 1.15 billion dollars.

In a statement to the Securities and Exchanges Commission on Tuesday, 3PAR said Dell had 72 hours to revise its offer before it would take HP's "superior proposal."

"3PAR has given Dell three business days to negotiate an amendment to its merger agreement with 3PAR," it said.

The acquisition bid highlights the computer manufacturers' effort to target advanced and more complex computer systems as the personal desktop and laptop market near their peak, analysts said.

HP said the acquisition would accelerate its so called "converged infrastructure strategy, which provides customers with an unmatched portfolio of intellectual property across storage, server and networking solutions."