W.J. Hennigan wrote a pretty nice piece for the Los Angeles Times about the use of smartphone and tablet technology by the U.S. military:
Frustrated that he had to flip through dozens of maps stuffed inside his chopper, Carlson, 31, loaded the documents onto his personal iPad, enabling him to zoom in, zoom out and quickly move from one map to another.
Carlson’s brainstorm shortened the time it took to pinpoint a location from “three minutes to about 30 seconds,” he recalled recently, and it soon helped change the way the military is thinking about warfare. The Marines now have more than 30 iPads in cockpits across their fleet of helicopters and fighter jets.
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The Army is using iPhones, Androids and BlackBerrys in mock wartime situations in New Mexico and Texas.
Such devices are coming in handy in simulated security raids and checkpoint stops to take pictures of Arabic writing and gather biometric data, such as fingerprints and iris scans, McCarthy said.