The U.S. Department of Education (ED) is underwriting a $580,000 project to report on technology innovations in Japan. Grant recipients at the University of Southern California say their online project, dubbed the "USC Japan Review," will alert Americans to important technology innovations that might otherwise go unnoticed. But some exasperated American educators say ED would do better giving that kind of money to one or more U.S. school districts.

Professors and other academics at USC Annenberg's Online Journalism and Communication Program say they will spend the ED grant on creating a web site dedicated to highlighting technology innovations in Japan.

The site's content will expose students, teachers, and other tech-savvy users to a wireless culture, which is advancing far more rapidly than anything yet to arrive in the United States, they say.

Be it expanded text-messaging capabilities; the integration of global positioning systems into cell phone technologies; or increased bandwidth and reception range, Japanese services typically outpace American innovations, according to Larry Pryor, director of the online journalism program and one of the study's chief organizers.

"There is no question that the applications they have in Japan are well above what we do in the states," Pryor said. "Japan is going to become the most intensely wireless country in the world."

Pryor said the university based its grant application on broad evidence that Japan was continuing to build up its massive technology infrastructure, including an increase in PC hook-ups and broadband connections – all advancements the Eastern world typically lagged behind on in previous decades.

"The government's policies on internet technology state categorically that it is the government's goal to make Japan a totally wireless, hooked-up nation over the next several years," he said.

USC Annenberg's three-year initiative will focus mainly on providing information on three main topics: the hottest trends, government policies, and the latest technological developments to come out of the Eastern hemisphere.

A web log – updated daily – will contain world news stories, research reports, and coverage of new government polices on technology issues. Visitors also will have access to original content submitted by freelance writers. According to Pryor, the features will focus on exposing new technology trends not yet in vogue in the West.

And the site will host a live forum discussion where students, academics, and others can log-on to discuss changing trends and stay abreast of what new technologies are looming in the East.

Pryor said the research will be especially important for education as colleges and K-12 districts across the nation look to cultivate and expand their use of broadband and wireless technologies.

"Distance learning has gotten a bad reputation because it was tied up in the dot-com collapse," Pryor said.