I’m sure many of us know someone in the military that has been called over to Iraq. Some of us might also know a few that bring along their tech devices like Xbox 360’s, computers, and iPods. How many of you know that iPods are used to assist soldiers in the line of duty? VCommunicator Mobile is filling that role for troops in the Middle East.

How exactly is Vcommunicator Mobile assisting the military? VCommunicator Mobile is a portable training reference device created byVCom 3D, Inc.. According to Strategy Page, It is currently being used by the US troops from the 10th mountain division specially have been supplied with programmed iPods for the past year.

Logging onto VCommunicator Mobile’s website I found that the software program includes language modules for Iraqi Arabic and Kurdish. Additionally, modules for languages that are spoken in Afghanistan (Daro and Pushto) are also included.

VCommunicator Mobile features three different scenarios which show speech, and written text in Arabic, and video animations. In the video animations, troops will also see videos of soldiers making the correct hand gestures. I have a few Arabic friends, and they have told me that gestures are used often in Arabic. If the soldier needs standard phrases that are used at places like checkpoints, raid, or patrols VCommunicator Mobile has thoughtfully included a collection of phrases to cover these situations. Each language takes up four gigabytes of space and since at the moment a lot of languages aren’t needed soldiers can use the sturdy iPod Nanos. The military is paying $800,000 for this impressive software.

Translation software is nothing new to the military it has been developing soldier friendly software since 2001. However, this current software has a distinct advantage since it is designed for a mobile device which makes it easier, and lighter to carry. The past translation software needed a laptop or PDA. I can definitely see how this device would assist the soldiers who are stationed in these countries since it won’t forget the correct phrase to use giving the troops a much larger vocabulary when interacting with the locals. Having the VCommunicator Mobile available would cut down on the training time to learn additional vocabulary words since you only have to turn it on and search for the correct phrase.

A great addition to this program is the editor which enables troops to update their existing libraries along with adding new phrases or organizing them. If you want to get a demo on how VCommunicator Mobile works log onto VCom 3D and “Nate” will guide you through a demo of the VCommunicator Mobile software.

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Entry was posted on Sunday, August 31st, 2008 at 4:45 am under Uncategorized.  Print This Post

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