Viral Communicators

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Descripotion

- David Reed on meshworks on viral communicators

"Technically, we can use cooperative digital radios and wired nodes to make each new member add network capability rather than consume it and thereby scale reliably: Each cell phone can be an ad hoc tower; each Blackberry can store neighborhood messages; we can build cameras that never run out of film and recorders that consume no tape. This cooperation rewrites the rules of network capacity, interference, and power use. Perhaps most important, since the features of the network are implemented in each node rather than in the core, change can be incremental, at the discretion of each user, without requiring historically high capital outlay associated with new communications products. Hence: the potential for industrial destabilization. Examples range from free-standing sensors to open 802.11 networks. These emergent communicators can—and will—be renegades: unlicensed, personalized, digital, and embedded. This constituency is and is likely to continue to be the fastest growing segment of the communications market. These innovations need not be provided by "mainframe" communications companies." (Viral Communications lab at MIT, http://dl.media.mit.edu/viral/ )


More Information

- Reed’s Viral Communications Lab at MIT

URL = http://dl.media.mit.edu/viral/ ; http://dl.media.mit.edu/viral/viral.pdf

“Viral Communications focuses on constructing agile, scalable, collaborative systems that permit uncontrolled growth, minimal power use, and maximum ability to intercommunicate, with viral architectures moving the intelligence from the trunk to the leaves. Centered in the MIT Media Laboratory, this work addresses both the basic mechanisms of radio and the applications that embed communications in the bits and pieces of daily life, from clothes, to dog collars, to furniture."