That's the idea behind "Infinity," prototype middleware developed by IBM researchers and graduate students for data sharing among mobile devices. The middleware could allow users to connect and share information between devices, regardless of operating system, hardware or communication modes.

IBM officials declined to say when Infinity -- which IBM calls the first standard way to share data between diverse mobile devices directly in ad hoc networks -- would be ready for sale. And while they declined to detail their plans for the technology, they said it could be used for ad hoc networking that could involve traffic monitoring or responses to natural disasters.

"The idea for Infinity started with realizing we have a whole lot of mobile devices such as cell phones, PDAs and even USB memory sticks, which all store a lot of information," Stefan Schoenauer, lead researcher on the Infinity team, said in a recent interview. "So we wondered: What if we could tap into all those devices and make all that information accessible?"

Schoenauer noted that devices "speak so many different languages" given the various operating systems and hardware and software features now in use. "It's hard to connect devices and to share information among them," he said. "So we've built a piece of software that runs atop all these mobile devices and makes them speak a common language, makes the exchange of information easier and takes security and privacy into account so that you're only sharing information with whom you want."

Work on the concept began a year ago, and the middleware is currently just 200KB in size, Schoenauer said. It still needs features added for greater stability and use.