Piling on iPhone, Android Military Apps

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency said on Monday it wants individuals and industry to develop military iPhone and Android applications "that can be used today with little or no additional research and development expenses."

The request, posted on FedBizOpps on Tuesday, dovetails with plans that Maj. Gen Keith Walker, director of the Army's Future Force Integration Directorate at Fort Bliss, Texas, detailed on Monday, which included testing smart phone apps with 200 soldiers in the Army Evaluation Task Force.

Lt. Gen. Jeffrey Sorenson, the Army's chief information officer, also kicked off on Monday his Apps for the Army contest, which seeks some good ideas for mobile and Web apps.

You can't beat this synchronicity. And hopefully Mari Maeda, who runs the DARPA program, will have a confab with Sorenson and Walker.

DARPA said it is looking for mobile apps that can be used on the battlefield, for humanitarian assistance and in disaster recovery efforts.

The Defense agency said it views the use of mobile phone apps as a way to transform the fielding of battlefield systems and software that could result in the rapid development of applications and system enhancements that keep up with the changing demands of warfighters on the battlefield.

If this works, maybe the Defense Department could kill off the decade-old Joint Tactical Radio System project, the primary purpose of which seems to be the consumption of billions of dollars in finding without delivering many working radios.