1990: Birth of the InfoPad, one of the first mobile, wireless Internet devices
Courtesy
Paul Wright
Protoype of the InfoPad. (Click for larger
image.)
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Before e-mail
pagers and mobile phones with Web access, even before the World
Wide Web, Berkeley's InfoPad introduced the concept of the mobile,
wireless, Internet appliance. Led by professors Jan Rabaey and Robert
W. Brodersen of the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer
Sciences, the InfoPad project was groundbreaking in its vision:
an inexpensive multimedia terminal that you could tote for ready
access to text, graphics, audio, video, and the computing power
housed on a backbone network like the Internet.
Building such a device though meant building an entire system
— from the low-power wireless technology and network infrastructure
to the user interface and software to the pad itself. The result
was a massive cross-disciplinary project that at its peak enlisted
50 students, seven faculty, six staff, and five member companies.
Throughout InfoPad's six-year lifespan, important lessons were
learned not just about technology but about project management.
Ultimately, the benefits of a multidisciplinary approach, according
to Brodersen, far outweighed the logistical hurdles of linking
so many research activities.
"A primary positive aspect was that students and faculty were
exposed to the constraints, capabilities and research approaches
of a number of disparate disciplines," writes Brodersen, who,
with Rabaey, now directs the InfoPad-spawned Berkeley Wireless
Research Center.
From the rapid prototyping innovations of mechanical engineering
professor Paul Wright and his team to computer science professor
Randy Katz and his students' mobile Internet protocol advances
to Rabaey and Brodersen's low-power radios, the ideas that launched
InfoPad continue to inform the development of the next-generation
Internet without wires.
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© 2002 UC Regents. Updated
4/1/02.
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