What do you want your cell phone to be able to do?
Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor Hal Abelson put that question to about 20 computer science students this semester when he gave them one assignment: Design a software program for cell phones that use Google Inc.'s upcoming Android mobile operating system.
In the process, they revealed the power of an open system like Android to shake up the mobile phone industry, where wireless companies are being pressured to loosen the control they have maintained over what devices do. If the brainstorms of these MIT students are an indication, phones will soon challenge the Internet as a source of innovation.
For these students at least, cell phones should be all about location, location, location. Most of the projects produced by the seven teams of students involved programs that let phones track people's physical place -- or that of their friends -- to help them do things and meet up.
One project named GeoLife gives users a way to set to-do lists and get reminders on their phones. Walk by the market, and the device might buzz with a message that you're supposed to pick up milk. Another effort, named Flare, was designed to help small businesses like pizza shops cheaply track their drivers.
Then there was Locale, which lets users configure their phones to automatically adjust their settings when the devices detect themselves in certain zones. So you might set your phone to automatically go into vibrate mode in the office and silent mode at the movie theater, and ring everywhere else.
The class had about three months to build software for an Android phone. The idea had to have a solid business case, a probable way of making money.
Some of that required conjecture, because there are no Android phones yet. A group called the Open...

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