Army to Deploy Android Smartphones in Oct.

The U.S. Army is preparing to send hundreds of Android smartphones overseas in October, as part of a secure battlefield communication system.

Sixteen years in the making, the Warfighter Information Network-Tactical (WIN-T) will provide more than 1,000 troops with Motorola Atrix phones, according to a report from Wired.

Using Rifleman Radios plugged into the Motorola devices, soldiers will be able to rapidly send voice messages, texts, photos, and data across war zones.

Unfortunately, "it arrives pretty much too late for the wars," Wired pointed out. The technology has been in the works since 1996, when cell phones were the size of bricks and smartphone mechanics were just a glimmer in Apple's eyes.

"WIN-T was designed as a communications system [?] for the U.S. Army that would enable decisive combat actions," GlobalSecurity.org said in a 1999 description of the network, which began its life in the mid-1990s under the name Land Warrior, Wired said. Back then, the Army required soldiers to wear 12-pound computers that included keyboards and monocles attached by cables.

Now, the altered Android phones will load mapping applications with location data about the 3rd and 4th Brigade Combat Teams of the 10th Mountain Division in Afhanistan. Records of insurgents, homemade bombs, or Afghan civilians will appear on the digital maps based on soldier input, according to Wired.

The Army's director for Systems Integration, and an amateur app designer, Col. Dan Hughes, is open to using devices other than the Motorola Atrix, Wired reported. The colonel reportedly envisions a newer phone system being used for the network every year or two.

Over the next two years, the Army wants to bring WIN-T to a total of eight brigades.

The U.S. government has been teasing military-grade smartphone technology for a while. Last summer, it tested apps to aid soldiers in battlefield tasks, months before the Department of Defense approved Dell's Android-based Streak 5 tablet for use on its secure networks.

In February, the U.S. government announced that employees, including some in the military, would receive smartphones later this year that are authorized to send and receive classified documents.

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Source: http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2406530,00.asp?kc=PCRSS05039TX1K0000762

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