The New Secret Weapon: Smart Phones in the Military

In a military version of MMS, a soldier can snap a photo of a person they captured and immediately send it to headquarters for intelligence people to identify the person.(popularairsoft.com)

First the U.S. Army, and now the Air Force are making smart phones their next priority. Right now, the U.S. Air Force is weighing the decision to move towards commercial, off-the-shelf smart phones (e.g., the iPhone or Google Android) for field operations. Their greatest concern is being able to obtain the highest level of encryption that can ensure secure classified processing on a smart phone.

However, the use of smart phones as critical field technologies has proven successful already in other military branches, enabling soldiers to seamlessly access critical data needed to do their jobs.

In fact, just last year, the Pentagon had funded a national initiative to build a smart phones app store for military and defense use.

Raytheon, one of the largest defense contractors in the world, has also jumped
into the smartphone apps business and also used the Android in
developing an application that will be helpful for the soldiers on a mission.
Called the Raytheon Android Tactical System (RATS)the system turns
into a realtime intelligence and map tool as it allows 
the soldier to tap on other technologies such as a UAV to
get streaming video. This gives the soldier a birds eyeview of
the battlefield. For civil missions, this can also be
useful for search and rescue operations (popularairsoft.com)

Network World reports the growth of the military apps marketplace, which had led to the recent development of the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency’s Transformative Apps Program:

A military apps marketplace will be created to enable rapid innovation to meet user needs based on a direct collaboration between a vibrant and highly competitive development community and involved communities of end-users. The program will address all the challenges – technical, business, and operational – faced to make the new capabilities available for use in the field.

http://mocana.com/blog/2011/02/03/the-new-secret-weapon-smart-phones-in-the-military/