Infinity could also allow one device to share entire applications with other devices, he explained. "If your colleague doesn't have your address book application on his cell phone, his phone could be asked by your phone if he wants it installed. If he says he is fine with this, then the application is automatically shared and started."

The middleware functions similar to a Web server, Schoenauer said, and involves a runtime engine, HTML pages and JavaScript and is designed to make application development easy.

Four graduate students worked last summer on Infinity as part of IBM's Extreme Blue internship program. The students named the project Infinity after cartoon character Buzz Lightyear's "To infinity and beyond!" slogan, Schoenauer said. One of the students, Leonard Lee, described the process as "intense and fun." Lee is working on an MBA degree at University of California, Los Angeles, and devoted his attention to understanding the business rationale for the prototype and how to take it to market.

"I don't know what the future holds for it," he said. "I can see it as a product that will take the Internet beyond its current state from what is now a network of stand-alone devices to devices [that are] connected. From a data standpoint, it would open the floodgates."

Lee worked with three technical interns, all in graduate programs: Evan Shon at the University of California, San Diego; Yong Yao at Cornell University; and Ian Yap at UCLA. Schoenauer said IBM had come up with the basic idea before the students worked on features, including privacy protection.