Summary

We find it significant that military operations now exploit the same instant messaging technology that many teens, preteens, and twenty-somethings have become addicted to. Certainly, messaging has been a cornerstone of warfare forever, but real-time, nonverbal "instant" messaging within a given operations center can significantly alter historical chains of command in exchange for decision-making expediency. This expediency, expressed as real-time coordination of people and data resources, offers the same value to business organizations. The new battlefield vision is one of real-time gathering of massive volumes of sensor data, with wireless networks that weave the data streams together. Extracting real-time information from these data streams is now possible because of super-computerlike power packaged into tight and hardened in-theater environments. Without the proper and real-time distillation of the relentless data streams, operations would be paralyzed by the data or result in mistakes (possibly with horrific consequences).

On the homeland security front, a similar trend toward Inescapable Data gathering and real-time digestion and analysis is occurring. BioDefense initiatives are driving widespread deployment of sensors with wireless connectivity for centralized analysis and intelligence. The need for more comprehensive video surveillance, driven by a perceived need for greater homeland security, is now producing unprecedented volumes of data (data that has to be stored and analyzed by somebody somewhere). The pervasiveness of streaming image data-capture capabilities has brought with it a challenge to make sensible and ethical use of it. Imaging and wireless sensory technologies, honed on the battlefield, will find deployment in these newer and more homeland-securityfocused venues, crossing traditional government and private-sector boundary lines. Finally, the historical silo'd approach to holding intelligence information is now turning toward full connectivity, not only to avoid another national catastrophe but to also streamline general governmental operations. For government agencies, connectivity offers new vitality.