I had the distinct pleasure of speaking earlier this year at a San Diego Telecom Council event with Dr. David Hutches from UCSD. David is ideall situated as a computer science researcher who has responsibility for the wireless network on campus, and he teaches as well. He spoke at length (a lively speaker, I might add) on the activities that UCSD is engaging in with broadband on campus.


The applications that UCSD has developed that use both WiFi and EV-DO (WWAN) technology range from mobile "bubbles" that are essentially moving access points, to a cybershuttle (a faster moving bubble) that picks up students and faculty from the local train station as well as shuttling them around campus, to a link to campus roaming robot - shown above - that interacts with humans. The last project seemed particularly interesting (with somewhat unclear practical commercial applicaitons yet - maybe that's the appeal). This project, with a host of other, have been conducted at the Computer Vision and Robotics Research lab at UCSD.