Grant funds pioneering technology project

IU launched three new computer technology labs Tuesday, funded by a $30 million grant from the Lilly Endowment.\nThree more labs funded by the grant, which was announced in 1999, will be opened in the near future at IU-Purdue University at Indianapolis.\nThe Pervasive Technology Labs at IU will bring together high-speed computers and "smart" devices ranging from scientific instruments to home appliances.\nUsers will be able to access the technology with a personal computer, telephone or other device.\nSome of the possibilities that could result from the technology include a microchip in a refrigerator that could order food online when supplies are running low and a biosensor that could explore the body after being swallowed in a tablet.\nWhile IU will not develop the products themselves, it will develop and patent promising generic technologies that could lead to such products, said Michael McRobbie, vice president for information technology.\nIn addition to technological benefits, officials touted the labs as a boost to state and local economies and to IU's academic reputation and ability to attract top faculty and students.\n"You can't build Silicon Valley overnight," McRobbie said. "This is a start."\nAmong the officials at a ceremony to unveil the labs Tuesday at Bloomington City Hall were Lt. Gov. Joe Kernan, Bloomington Mayor John Fernandez and IU President Myles Brand.\nBrand said the labs would explore promising new technology and would benefit the state and University in the long run.\n"This is the future. This is where IU, Bloomington, Indiana must go," Brand said. \nBrand called the move in Indiana from a manufacturing economy to an information-based economy a "painful transition," citing the potential loss of 460 jobs at Otis Elevator.\nBut he said the transition will provide more jobs and better jobs. It will also bring to Indiana new businesses and new opportunities for partnerships, Brand said.\n"The 21st Century is a time of the mind, not the back," he said.\nTwo of the labs are located in the Showers complex -- an old furniture factory.\nScott Jones, chairman of the Indiana Technology Partnership, said Indiana wants to be a "recognized technology leader" in the Midwest by 2005.\nTo get there, he said, the state must rise in a number of categories: Indiana's technology status will be measured by education, research dollars, venture capital, patents, the percentage of scientists and engineers and the number of technology based jobs, he said.\nOfficials said the new IU labs will address all of these categories.\nAnother feature of the Lilly grant is $2 million that has been set aside for seed capital to fund spin-off companies.\nMcRobbie called it a "pre-venture fund."\nWhen innovations start to emerge from a lab, the fund could make a six-month investment in a team to develop a prototype of the technology, McRobbie said.\nThe three labs that opened Tuesday are the Advanced Network Management Lab, the Community Grids Lab and the Open Systems Lab.\nResearchers from the Advanced Network Management Lab provided solutions and advice to the University when when a security hole was left open on a Bursar's office computer last year. The hole allowed information about several students to be downloaded to a computer overseas.\nThe lab will develop technologies to help manage the convergence of data, voice and video and over the Internet.\nThat will start by scrutinizing current network systems for faults, researcher Ed Balas said.\n"Any switched Ethernet can be monitored by anyone else in the network," Balas said, as he demonstrated the phenomena on two different computers.\n"When the Internet exploded, the ability to manage it did not," Balas said.\nThe Community Grid Lab will focus on grid computing, peer-to-peer computing and parallel computing.\nIn a demonstration Tuesday, the lab demonstrated the possibilities of multimedia education.\n"We're trying to make education a service you plug into," said Geoffrey Fox, director of the lab. "You enroll at your favorite university. The actual lecture delivery and grading can be delivered from the best, anywhere."\nAudio and video feeds, messaging and digital assistance are some of the multimedia education possibilities being looked at by researchers.\nThe Open Systems Lab will look at ways to develop universally accessible, or "open," software that will be available free to the public.\n"We make software that just works," said researcher Jeff Squyres. "Honestly, software that sucks less."\nWhen the labs' Lilly grant funding runs out after five years, officials say more grants will be sought.