Army Picks Android to Power Its First Smartphone

[sunny]

For the Army, Droid does, all right.

The Army wants every soldier to carry a smartphone to stay networked.
It doesn’t yet have a program for that, having spent the last year
working through the implications of what it might mean to have such a
system — like, for instance, what operating system would power it. An
initial answer: Google’s Android.

A prototype device running Android called the Joint Battle Command-Platform, developed by tech nonprofit MITRE, is undergoing tests. The development kit behind it, called the Mobile /Handheld Computing Environment, will be released to app creators in July, the Army says.

But until then, the envisioned apps for the Joint Battle
Command-Platform will run a gambit of Army tasks. There will be a
mapping function like the kinds the defense industry is
developing for soldier smartphones and tablets.
A Blue Force Tracker program will keep tabs on where friendly forces are.
“Critical messaging” will exchange crucial data like medevac requests
and on the ground reporting.

There are still a lot of questions to be
answered about the Army’s smartphone effort, like how to keep data
secure and how to use the devices effectively in combat environments
with low connectivity.

Gen. Peter Chiarelli, the iPhone lover who moonlights as the Army’s vice chief of staff,
has boasted that the devices being tested can withstand the physical wear-and-tear of
soldiering, but it remains to be seen just how rugged the smartphone is.
Even when connected to a radio, the Army says its Joint Battle
Command-Platform weighs about two pounds. That’s way lighter than
the Nett Warrior suite of sensors, computers, radios
and mapping functions — the Army’s program of record for doing
much of what a smartphone already does.

But that’s not to say the current phone prototype will be what the
Army ends up issuing soldiers. And it’s also not to say that whatever
makes it through testing will definitely rely on Android as its
operating system. That’s all a ways away.

But the point of building the Mobile/Handheld Computing Environment
is to have a common framework for designing apps that can run on any
manner of devices — and that’s an early indication that the Army’s
leaning toward Android devices, especially in this age of budget
efficiencies, rather than iOS, which is tied to one specific (i)Phone.

Score one for open architecture.

Photo: U.S. Army

[sunny]

อีกหน่อย ใครใช้โทรศัพท์ระบบ Android คงได้คิดหนัก

ใช้ (i)Phone ก็ถูก spy

ใช้ของจีนแดงดีที่สุด ถูกด้วยสิ

[sunny]

Military Could Use iPhones to Track Friends, Enemies in War

By Brian X. Chen December 17, 2009



What if the iPhone could be used in war? True, it’s primarily a
consumer product, but it’s versatile and always connected to the
internet (assuming you have network reception) — so why not?
That’s the idea behind new iPhone apps being showcased by Raytheon, a
military contractor, at the Intelligence Warfighting Summit in Tucson.

One app called the One Force Tracker will provide live data tracking the
location of friends and foes on real-time maps. The app will also be
used to communicate with other units.
The image above depicts multiple personnel of a military force or first-response team
on a map displayed in One Force Tracker.

“Among several objectives, Raytheon wants to enable superior
situational awareness for war fighters or for police, fire and rescue
teams, enabling them to quickly make more informed decisions,” a
Raytheon spokesman told Wired.com.

Raytheon is also developing an air-traffic simulator similar to the popular iPhone game Flight Control.
Raytheon’s app aims to enable air-traffic controllers to repetitively
practice (in multilevel, gamelike fashion) aspects of their training
regimen anytime, anywhere. The image below shows a simulation mode of
the app, which is designed to allow controllers to practice “vectoring”
multiple aircraft. The goal is to maintain safe air speed and distance
between units, among other factors. (We’d imagine Raytheon’s air-traffic
simulator is much more difficult than Flight Control.)

Neat stuff. What’s funny is the military usually gets all the cool
tech before consumers do, but this is a rare case of the opposite.

Raytheon isn’t the first to try out military apps for the iPhone,
either. Previously, Wired.com reported on BulletFlight,
a $30 iPhone app for military snipers to calculate ballistics. The app
was designed to complement a gun mount for the iPod Touch.