I work in medicine, and I could see lots of uses for these. The problem with tablet PC’s (and we use some of them) is that they take the standard mouse point and click thought process and apply it to a tablet. I could see how a system built from the start as a gesture and touch based interface could be a very powerful tool.
I have always felt than when the military allows its personnel to propose solutions for problems (and is actually open to them) it shows just how powerful, adaptable and formidable our military can be as a military expression of the American way of life.
I remember reading somewhere about the networks the military used early on to transmit data (such as linking, position, targeting and communication data.
I guess it wasn’t particularly well designed, as it didn’t make use of all the available bandwidth they built, and they had some communication networks so full of data they would nearly choke, while others would be very sparsely populated.
Communication data would have to wait or would take so long to transmit that it created operational problems. Then some enterprising souls (I think in the Navy) found that they could send data over a targeting or linking network , and it worked so well the brass not only didn’t discourage it or look the other way and pretend not to notice, it wholeheartedly embraced it. I know that sounds weird, but if you have ever been in the military, you recognize that it has a very pungent bureaucracy and self limiting mentality in various aspects.
The “rule book” mentality.
And it isn’t across the board in all areas or even at the same times. I do know that many of the “rules” in the military, while sometimes incomprehensible, were written in blood. It is not often wise to blindly accept a rule or premise, but I will give a break to certain military processes because you know it has to have been the result of loss of life.
They have stuff like that on the flight deck of an aircraft carrier, but they have it everywhere else too...the infantry, a cockpit of a bomber, etc.
Anyway, I got off subject, but things like this, if well designed and well implemented, could help our military greatly.
If, of course, our military survives until 2012.
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