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 Binary Runtime Environment for Wireless (BREW) allows the dynamic creation of applications for wireless devices. Designed by Qualcomm to foster the development of simple, yet effective, wireless applications, "BREW provides a comprehensive solution to an industry-wide need for a unifying platform" ¹ . Utilizing only 100 kilobytes, BREW runs 'on-top' of a phone's chip system and serves as the foundation for an array of new applications. It presents expansive new possibilities for mobile computing, including, but not limited to, messaging services, GPS/maps, electronic wallets, interactive newscasters and game players, music and video players, Internet radio and calendaring, and PIM tools. An application can be designed specifically for a phone, eliminating the problems associated with adapting desktop applications for phone usage.
BREW's simplicity and flexibility make it an important tool in wireless application development. Applications can be written with Windows-based tools, so that even developers lacking experience with wireless technology can design applications for CDMA handsets, without "incurring the costs of finding a handset partner and gaining access to chip system software [and] complex, embedded device software functions [become] accessible through a familiar, high-level environment". Developers can write in the language of their choice because BREW "is neutral about development environments". Additionally, BREW allows hardware designers to maintain a focus on hardware by integrating various applications onto one platform, enabling different devices to run the same applications. Essentially, BREW promotes the efficient and effective development of highly customized applications for wireless devices, producing the immediate gain of applications specifically designed for phones, which thus contain those features vital to a handset efficacy, and the long-term benefit of a standardized platform for wireless devices.
¹ All quotations in this document refer to "BREW: Binary Runtime Environment for Wireless", QUALCOMM, 2001.
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The California Institute for Telecommunications and Information Technology [Calit²] is excited to partner with Qualcomm for the initial circulation of BREW to developers at UCSD. The UCSD campus offers an ideal test-bed for BREW because it unites highly technical faculty and students with a community large enough for dissemination of the application platform among actual users. The BREW partnership aligns with the Calit² initiative of intertwining education, research and industrial collaboration.
Qualcomm will provide Calit² with several dozen Kyocera handsets, airtime through QuOTA (Qualcomm Over The Air), and the BREW Software Development Kit (SDK), via public download, as well as technical support and training. Qualcomm will benefit from this collaboration because usage of the BREW SDK will be expanded, provides a test-bed for emerging 3G technologies, and allows the company to gain from the research experiences of UCSD professionals while supporting Calit² and Jacobs School of Engineering/UCSD.
 Several campus groups have been selected to receive the handsets and participate in application development. Students working with these groups will receive the benefit of access to faculty and University resources in designing their applications.
There are some procedural aspects of participating in the BREW/Calit² partnership. In order for a phone to be checked out to a student for a long-term loan, he or she must have a plan for the phone's use and application development or be a member of a faculty led group with such a plan. Additionally, in exchange for the use of the phone, the student agrees that applications designed belong to the University as part of the Calit² education initiative.
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