Viral Communications
Great periods of innovation occur when the system intelligence is moved to the leaves. That effect is multiplied if the technological leap is in synch with social goals. Examples are autos versus trains, and PCs versus mainframes. We call such systems viral. They are defined by (nearly) infinite scaling, independent addition of elements, and incremental value as each element is added. This view of communications, where additional nodes support each other instead of interfere, is a new research domain with applications ranging from wired to wireless to social and economic structures. We explore this principle with respect to networks and radio: how we can build socially responsive networks that are unregulated, have no limit to their size or capability, and where each new node adds capacity to the whole. The tip of this iceberg is WiFi and Napster, but the generalizations bear out the theory that network capacity can grow with the number of members. We think of it as cooperative communications.
Students interesting in joining in our exploration of the theory of such nets, and who are are capable of building demonstrations constructed with tiny as well as large-scale computing.
