The Daily Bruin's Constance Dillon reports that Mario Gerla, a computer science professor at UCLA's Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science, has developed a car-to-car network, a wireless network that allows for the transfer of information between cars while on the road.

"The project is based on the principles of a wireless, mobile ad-hoc networking platform, or MANET, that allows moving vehicles within a range of 100 to 300 meters of each other to connect and, car by car, create a network with a wide range," Dillon writes.

Information acquired over such a network, Gerla says, could include things like maps and tourist information. "Car-to-car information can also communicate the specific location of the cars and suggest potential detailed travel plans," Dillon writes. "Drivers can be alerted of safety issues, including car accidents that have occurred or dangers on the road such as blind curves."

"We think in the future that vehicle-to-vehicle will become an important way of exchanging information," Gerla says.

More here from ZDNet Blogs ... and the press release is here.