The network developed by Farkas can currently be used to share pictures and text, "We were primarily thinking of this kind of content", he said. Future versions should go further; sharing content like digital music is a priority. The system works on phones that connect to GPRS networks, which were designed to make it cheap to stay online. The team faced several challenges in the development, as mobile phones have to rely for now on limited battery power and haven't got as much processing power as a computer. The researchers tried several schemes for communicating between users and clusters to see which would work the best for the network. They found a complex structure known as "deterministic ring" to be ideal, blending fast searching with network resilience.
However, while this new development seems promising, it's understandable that it will receive pressure and eventually legal troubles from the entertainment industry, which is currently fighting P2P networks on the Internet in an attempt to slow down copyright infringement.
Source:
New Scientist
Written by: James Delahunty @ 16 Sep 2004 9:51
