Dude! Killer app, indeed. Innovation takes many forms. Sometimes it means investing in the newest technological developments in order to grab sustainable advantage. Sometimes it means reinventing processes to make them more efficient. And sometimes it means rethinking how off-the-shelf tools might make your task easier and more productive.
The US Army is taking the third path in trying to figure out how to utilize advances in smart phone technology. Even in their current configurations, they might work. With a few tweaks, they might literally become killer apps.
Aside from the obvious gamification implications down the road, civilians may benefit from this experimentation much as they have with other defense investments, like that internet thing military-funded research thought up a few decades ago. JL
Nathan Hodge reports in the Wall Street Journal:
"The Army plans to hold desert trials in the U.S. next week to test off-the-shelf iPhones, Androids and tablet computers for use in war. Starting Monday, the Army will also stress-test a variety of applications that could allow troops to tap digital information from the front lines—for instance, streaming video from a surveillance camera, or downloading up-to-the minute information from a remote database.
The Army doesn't have a plan to give every soldier a smartphone. But Gen. Peter Chiarelli, the Army's vice chief of staff, recently said that if the devices proved themselves in testing, the service would "buy what we need for who needs it now."
Many of the applications the Army wants to develop—for instance, the ability to watch full-motion video shot from a drone—can already be done with equipment now in the field. The potential advantage of smartphones and tablets is their lighter weight and ease of use.
The tests will take place at the White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico and at neighboring Fort Bliss, Texas, as part of a wider Army evaluation of a range of communications gear. During the six-week event, soldiers of the Second Brigade Combat Team, First Armored Division, will see if the equipment holds up in rugged desert conditions.
Michael McCarthy, one of the Army's project leaders, said the point of smartphone testing is to see what works and what doesn't. "We want to give people the right phones for the right reasons, not just give them another shiny thing to hang on their equipment carriers," he said.
Army officials say the devices need to be relatively affordable, perhaps costing a few hundred dollars each, depending on the model. The service doesn't want to "spend $2,500 to ruggedize a $200 phone," Mr. McCarthy said.
In theory, smartphones could eventually become common tools for troops, with software customized for each unit or mission. The Army, for instance, is testing apps that could expedite the treatment of soldiers wounded in combat. In the coming exercise, the service will evaluate several apps that help speed requests for medical evacuation by relaying the exact location of an injured soldier, with touch-screen menus to fill in crucial information such as the patient's name, health status and type of injury.
Another app, called "SoldierEyes," turns a smartphone into a sort of battlefield navigation device. In addition to displaying a digital map, it features an "augmented reality" mode that enables the user to flip on the camera and scan the horizon. Digital markers pop up on the screen, displaying the direction and distance to objectives on the battlefield.
Biometrics—where the photos, fingerprints and iris scans are used to verify a person's identity—are another possible application for a military smartphone. The military already uses portable biometric collection kits to identify suspected insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan, but a downloadable phone app would, the thinking goes, put that kind of tool in the hands of more soldiers.
The Army is experimenting with Apple Inc. devices such as the iPhone and iPad, but is also trying devices built around Google Inc.'s Android operating system. All told, the Army has identified around 85 digital apps for testing, some created by commercial software designers, and some developed in-house by soldiers. The service is also developing downloadable apps to substitute for bulky instruction manuals that need constant updating, often at considerable cost.
To date, the Army has invested about $4.2 million in the development of military apps and the study of smartphone technology.
Troops need power to recharge their devices, and so the Army is studying alternative power sources, including solar chargers and micro fuel cells. Equally important, smartphones need enough network bandwidth to relay everything from chat and text messages to streaming video.
Brendan O'Connell, who heads a military-business unit for radio manufacturer Harris Corp., says smartphones are a popular subject in defense-technology circles, but that effective cellular networks for the troops aren't feasible without a "backbone communications architecture" that is rugged, mobile and secure.
"We don't want to get anybody hurt or killed by letting information out," said Rickey Smith, of the Army Capabilities Integration Center. Limiting weight is also key. "If it adds an ounce of weight to a soldier, make sure you need it," Mr. Smith said.
The devices themselves will also have to take a beating. On that score, however, Mr. McCarthy said the durability of commercial smartphones had been a "pleasant surprise," with hundreds of phones surviving handling by soldiers.
"In the last year, we've only had one that was damaged, and it was dropped on a carpeted floor and broke into three pieces," he said. "The major who did it has gotten infinite grief from his peers."
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