Army-specific apps earn cash

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Army-specific apps earn cash
By Joe Gould - Staff writer
Posted : Saturday Aug 14, 2010 12:09:01 EDT

Soon the Army may deploy androids on the battlefield. Hold on, not that kind of android. Google’s Android, Apple’s iPhone and other mobile devices could be issued to soldiers in the war zone “within the year,” said Lt. Gen. Jeff Sorenson, the Army chief information officer/G-6. Such devices are being tested for use with Army mobile networks, and both Apple and Google are on track to receive encryption certification from the National Security Agency within a year as well, Sorenson said.

To develop Army-specific applications for the mobile devices, the service solicited ideas from soldiers with a contest offering a top prize of $3,000.

The contest yielded 53 apps — and foreshadowed a promising way to quickly get technology to the battlefield, Sorenson said.

“I think that it portends a different way we can do future acquisition of applications for the war fighter,” Sorenson told reporters, adding later: “What I’m trying to do is to get capability to the war fighter much more rapidly, and it still conforms to the intent of the acquisition process, but in many cases, cuts through the bureaucracy and the formality of the process.”

The Army announced the winners of Apps for the Army, its first mobile phone app design contest, at the LandWarNet conference in Tampa, Fla.