The U.S. military display terminals modified version of Android

Although we are accustomed to seeing people use their smartphones , both personal and business level, there are certain areas where not all terminals can be used and require prior certification. For U.S., few manufacturers who have certifications attesting that their terminals are safe and therefore suitable for use at government level or within the military. Android is a very versatile platform but, in the eyes Pentagon, was an extremely open platform to allow its use but, however, it was logical to turn away so bet to customize their own version of Android to develop its own range of smartphones and tablets that, the next March begin to deploy its troops from abroad.

Currently, no federal official U.S. military personnel nor allowed to use personal nature terminals (smartphones or tablets) for the management of official data, one important restriction served to delimit long catalog terminals to use. The project started long ago but the choice of Android as the base is much more recent

The military has been testing touch devices for about two years. About 40 terminals were sent last year to send troops and the Army in March, 50 and 75 tablets smartphones to soldiers serving overseas

This modified version of Android, sorprendetemente could permtir users to install applications or games, although it could navigate through a proxy controlled by the Pentagon that would control the applications that can be installed and the data can be sent. In a first phase, these terminals will be deployed Android between troops in a second phase, also implemented between federal agencies and, perhaps, among government contractors.

What happens to the terminals? Interestingly, the Army is acquiring commercial terminals and simply, we are changing the operating system as amended.

The project, currently, is run by DARPA under the supervision of the NSA (which is also developing its own version of Android) and, frankly, is quite interesting that a project is basing such critical communications in an open source platform.