When the U.S. Army tested new wireless technology this spring at Fort Monmouth, NJ, it was also testing a new way to foster commercial development of military technologies. The ultrasecure cell phones used in the test were developed by Secureant-one tenant in a new army-funded incubator established specifically to nurture companies that could deliver information technologies for the battlefield of the future.

The Applied Communications and Information Networking project set up shop last fall. Each of the four firms sharing the project's Camden, NJ, facility is working on technology for "networked warfighting"-information sharing during the chaos of battle. The project's creators-the Army Communications and Electronics Command in Fort Monmouth, Sarnoff of Princeton, NJ, and Drexel University-hope that it will help the military out of an innovation dead end created by 50 years of reliance on big defense contractors. The U.S. Department of Defense is finding that the center of innovation in information technology has shifted dramatically, with small, private companies often setting the pace.