Covering the economic and industrial might of Japan

A research group will be set up in Japan with the purpose in mind of developing an optical technology to replace the Internet Protocol as the global standard.

Net surfing, working on a notebook PC, and PDAs won't be what they used to be.

The group will be established next month and run by the National Institute of Information and Communications Technology and private companies.

The institute aims to develop and commercialize by around 2015 a network that