STATE COLLEGE, Pa.
An academic Napster? A souped-up Google for educators?
Not quite, but the creators of “LionShare” say the new technology could make it easier for educators and researchers to quickly share or search for large academic and scientific files with peers or other institutions.
LionShare uses a secure, private “peer-to-peer” network for faculty, researchers and students to share photos, research, class materials and other types of information that may be not be easily accessible through current technology, said Mike Halm, director of the LionShare project at Penn State University.
“It’s a lot more than academic Napster,” said Halm, who spoke about the project at a meeting in Philadelphia on Tuesday of the Internet2 consortium.
On its Web site, Internet2 describes itself as partnership of universities, industry and government working together “to develop and deploy advanced network applications and technologies.”
Explaining how LionShare works involves some techno-speak that might be more familiar to the Napster crowd than someone whose computer savvy goes no further than Web surfing and e-mailing.
