Academic researchers are undertaking fundamental Internet design projects based on transparent software and pervasive computing.

These include MIT’s Oxygen, based on ubiquitous computing, and University of California at Berkeley’s Endeavor, based on the idea of creating ensembles of hardware and software networks, with a network that will include “Smart Dust” — tiny sensors that might form webs of sensors and actuators to help manage energy consumption or freeway traffic.

Larry Smarr, the former director of the National Center for Supercomputing Applications, is managing a similar project that will focus on creating smart buildings and intelligent transportation networks.