The U.S. Army/Leonard Wood Institute is providing funding for engineers from MU (University of Missouri College of Engineering) to develop a remote targeting app for military smart-phones. The goal is to allow military personnel to use their (presumably issued) smartphones as “powerful wireless sensor nodes”.
One example given was a visual targeting scenario in which a “…small team of soldiers in Afghanistan is monitoring a remote target, a vehicle for example. Using a laser to determine the exact location of the target is one common technique. But lasers have a limited range and are intrusive. The targeted entity may detect the signal the laser is shooting at them…Targeting can also be accomplished in sound-based scenarios, utilizing applications written to exploit the microphones in smartphones…
More on the remote target app under development.
-DR