A group of American universities have banded together to offer their campuses high speed computer networks beyond anything that is currently commercially available. The Gig.U project will offer one-gigabit connections to university campuses and their surrounding areas, which the project hopes will draw companies to the areas. The New York Times reports that in the test program in a small area near Case Western, three startups moved to the neighborhood within three months.

Computer accessories company Belkin International Inc. has acquired Zensi, an energy monitoring company. The financial details are unknown. Through the acquisition, Belkin will be moving into the energy conservation market. Belkin’s energy management product portfolio is called Conserve. Zensi’s technology is based on intellectual property from the School of Interactive Computing at the Georgia Institute of Technology and in the Computer Science & Engineering and Electrical Engineering departments of the University of Washington. [soCalTech]