the other end, avoiding all wires within the chip itself. "Instead of running the signal through the wires, what we did was broad- cast and receive the signal," O says. The demonstration proved it is possible to use a wireless system to broadcast on-chip signals. The potential applications for chip-based radios go beyond maintaining the performance of larger chips, O says. In general, the availability of such chips could lead to a chip-to-chip wireless communication infrastructure, seamlessly and constantly connecting desktops, handheld computers, mobile phones, and other portable devices. The military has expressed interest in pairing wireless chips with tiny sensors such as microphones. The idea is to drop thou- sands or even hundreds of thousands of these devices in a region to eavesdrop over a wide area. The chips would form a listening network by themselves, and the military could monitor the system as needed, O says. On the civilian side, O says, scientists and engineers have theorized that the wireless chips could be paired with motion detectors and implanted in the walls of buildings. If a building collapsed due to an earthquake, for instance, the network of chips could broadcast information about movement to rescuers in search of victims. NUTS AND BITS-TELECOM HARDWARE, SOFTWARE, AND MORE 2.12.4 Open Source Smart Phones Symbian, Microsoft, and PalmSource dominate the smart phone operating system landscape. But, as in the PC field, open-source software could soon become a significant player in the budding smart phone operating system market. The smart phone industry recently took a major step toward embracing open-source software when Motorola became the first major mobile phone maker to base a handset on Linux. The Motorola A760 is designed to combine the features of a mobile phone with the capabilities of a PDA, digital camera, and video/MP3 player. The product runs Java and related software from Sun Microsystems. The device also offers a variety of messaging functions, a speakerphone, Internet access, 