My post generated more noise than I expected, most likely due to a blogging by John Robb himself.  To that, all I can say is: wow.

@Neil: While other commentors bring up the several problems that relying on mobile phones in the AOR will cause, this discussion does show the power of the cloud.  These handsets don’t calculate much themselves, but have access to  a massive network of servers, satellites, and other end users.  I have some other thoughts on why we can’t “wait on a committee,” which I will bore you all with at a later date.

@Joel: Completely right, of course.  Use in the AOR is, well, rather unlikely.  On second look I didn’t mention it in the original post, but I was not imagining deployed use.  I was considering more for the urban guerrilla (frankly, this was a half-joking idea until I realized how easy a functional system would be with COTS parts).  If Cory Doctorow ever leads the revolution, for example, he could coordinate over Twitxr from his hot air baloon.

@mystikphish: I’ve use my Pearl for a year now to varying degrees of abuse, including three weeks of field training.  You’re right–it wouldn’t hold up to extended abuse.  See above comment.  You’re also correct about the barrel-cam on the Land Warrior load out.  I do, however, think that a little handset is less likely to give you away than an M16 muzzle with a camera on it–have you seen the pictures of those things?  That’s a big frigging camera.

Good call on police application.  You’re right, it would be interesting to see.  I, of course, was thinking more OPFOR use, but it is useful either way.

@MOGS: Well, he was a cadet.  2LT selects are only right 70% of the time.  He’ll get the other 30% when he graduates UPT.

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