What do people think about CALIT2? Is SOCALWUG to CALIT2, like Scaled Composites/Burt Rutan (privately funded think-tank) is to NASA (Big Bureacracy)?
http://calit2.net/about.html The Cal-(IT)² Vision The Internet is poised to undergo several fundamental transitions during the next decade. Application of digital wireless will make it possible to connect vast numbers of mobile end points to fixed Internet components. These end points will include information appliances (such as personal digital assistants), sensing devices, and embedded processors. At the same time, tens of millions of households and businesses will move from modems to broadband connections for Internet access.This explosive increase in demand is driving advances in fiber-optic technology. Where previously information was encoded on a single beam of light traveling on a fiber, now information can be encoded on individual wavelengths of light. Recent breakthroughs in technology are increasing the number of wavelengths available for data encoding and the amount of data that can be encoded, vastly lowering today's bandwidth cost. To help ensure that California maintain its leadership in the rapidly changing telecommunications and information technology marketplace, the University of California campuses at San Diego and Irvine have created the California Institute for Telecommunications and Information Technology (Cal-(IT)², pronounced cal-eye-tee squared). Our institute's mission is simple: Extend the reach of the Internet throughout the physical world. Cal-(IT)² teams UCSD and UCI faculty, students, and research professionals with leading California telecommunications, computer, software, and applications companies to conduct research on the scientific and technological components needed to bring this new Internet into being. Institute applications researchers are conducting their studies in "living laboratories" to investigate how this future Internet will accelerate advances in environmental science, civil infrastructure, intelligent transportation and telematics, genomic medicine, the new media arts, and educational practices. ---------------- http://calit2.net/industry/index.html More than 40 companies have seen the promise of Cal-(IT)² and have become partners. They include large, small, and pre-IPO companies providing products and services related to computing, communications, software, sensing devices, pharmaceuticals, and venture capital. Within the institute, these companies support professional researchers, endowed faculty chairs, student fellowships, laboratory equipment, in-kind services and materials, sponsored research activities.
