US ARMY'S SMARTPHONES TO RUN ANDROID

The US Army has selected Android to power the smartphones it eventually wants to issue to every soldier. Last year, there was question around whether the Army would select the iPhone or Android, but today they made the announcement. The idea here is to use smartphone technology to keep soldiers connected and in constant contact with monitoring personnel at military bases. Even though the program isn’t fully baked yet, they have settled on one thing: Google Android is the way to go.

That doesn’t mean that every solider will get a standard issue Droid when they sign up for the service, but it does mean that the hardware the Army eventually chooses to run its smartphones will support Android. The program, called the Joint Battle Command-Platform, is a project between MITRE and the US Army to develop the smartphones that will eventually be strapped to every soldier’s hip.

In fact, “smartphone” may be a bit of a misnomer for what the program aims to create: it’s less of a device that soldiers will be able to spend hours playing Angry Birds on and more of a tiny, portable computer and communications device. The device will only run apps that the Army approves and develops. Among those proposed apps are a mapping suite that will give soldiers situational awareness like where the enemy is and where friendly forces are. The suite would also allow commanders to track where their forces are on the battlefield.

The platform also allows for so-called “critical messaging,” which will allow commanders and forces in operation areas to exchange messages quickly and silently. There’s still debate and discussion around how the Army will keep the environment secure, and how the system will work in environments with no infrastructure for connectivity, but the project is still in its early stages.

The goal of the project is to develop a mobile platform using commercially available technology that the Army can extend with applications. So far, it looks like Android is the optimal choice for a platform that will work consistently with different hardware components, but is also open enough to give them flexibility when developing applications. No one’s sure what the product of the program will eventually look like, but the Army expects to release its development kit, called the Mobile/Handheld Computing Environment, in July to programmers and partners.