FCS, Cubic, Simulation News, NATO Pandemic, CSC +

Army Future's Software Overload (update)
http://blog.wired.com/defense/2008/01/army-futures-so.html
The Army's $300-billion Future Combat Systems is the most software-intensive weapons program the Pentagon's got. And according to the Government Accountability Office, the military has failed to anticipate the amount of programming required to get more than dozen types of vehicles and robots to communicate, according to a story last week in The Washington Post:


Cubic Introduces Wireless Technology for Virtual Simulations
http://money.cnn.com/news/newsfeeds/articles/marketwire/0354692.htm
The defense segment of Cubic Corporation (AMEX: CUB) has added an important new capability to its EST 2000 Engagement Skills Trainer, which is used by thousands of military personnel throughout the world to develop marksmanship, judgmental and collective training skills. Cubic has developed a tetherless M-4 training rifle that uses a wireless technology rather than computer cables to allow greater freedom of movement and more realism during tactical simulations.
Cubic's Simulation Systems Division in Orlando, Florida, delivered its first tetherless system last year to the Mississippi Air National Guard at the Combat Readiness Training Center in Gulfport. The division is under contract to deliver more tetherless M-4 rifles to the Wisconsin Air National Guard's Combat Readiness Training Center at Volk Field later this year. More than 1,000 EST 2000 systems are operational at Army and Air Force installations worldwide, including the continental United States, Alaska, Hawaii, Korea, Germany, Afghanistan, Kuwait and Iraq.
"There has been a growing demand for the soldier to train as they fight, and a tethered weapon can prevent movement, restricting motion in a collective mode," said Terry Fiest, director of Business Development for U.S. Army Programs for Cubic's Orlando division. "A tetherless weapon is more suited to tactical engagements and gives the soldier more latitude. We are finding that our customers like tethered weapons for marksmanship and they prefer tetherless for dismounted and offensive training scenarios."
The new simulator weapons have a CO2 driven recoil with 2.4GHz wireless connection. The electronics are battery powered and the recoil is provided by the CO2, which can be housed in either the ammunition magazine or in attachments to the simulated weapon. They can be used either with Cubic's Engagement Skills Trainer or its Warrior Skills Trainer, an enhancement to EST 2000 that enables soldiers to move around either on foot or in a moving vehicle in a simulation environment that replicates the weather conditions, convoy attacks and judgment issues that arise in certain combat situations.
Cubic's Orlando division is now working on converting other weapons used in EST 2000 and the Warrior Skills Training to operate in a tetherless environment. Cubic could potentially create tetherless technology for law enforcement users in the future. The company's Orlando site is used as a training venue for Central Florida law enforcement teams who want to train with Cubic's laser-based ground combat training instrumentation

U.S. Army Awards Modeling and Simulation Contract to Charles River Analytics
http://www.newswiretoday.com/news/29204/
NewswireToday - /newswire/ - Cambridge, MA, United States, 01/30/2008 - Charles River Analytics was awarded a follow-on contract from the U.S. Army for their work on modeling and simulation with GATIR (Graphical Authoring Tool for Inference Rules).

Charles River will work with the Modeling and Analysis Team at the U.S. Army Natick Soldier Research, Development, and Engineering Center (NSRDEC) in Natick, MA, to develop state-of-the-art computer-based modeling and simulation techniques for developing new equipment and tactics for Soldiers.“One of the goals of the Modeling and Analysis Team is to conduct assessments of ground Soldier equipment by creating realistic simulated Soldiers and environments where new capabilities can be introduced before they are built or used in the real world,” said Dr. Scott Neal Reilly, Vice President of Decision Management Systems at Charles River and the Principal Investigator for GATIR. “The simulation is both less expensive, since complex equipment can be evaluated before it is ever built, and safer, as the testing does not require live experimentation. It also makes the design, development, and evaluation process for new technologies faster, enabling new equipment and tactics to be deployed more rapidly.”Charles River will develop models of how Soldiers perceive and reason about their environment using cognitive science and artificial intelligence techniques. These models will help, for instance, in the development of new sensors and decision aids to increase Soldiers’ awareness of their surroundings. Such new systems can, in turn, help reduce friendly fire and accidental non-combatant deaths.

Analysis: NATO begins pandemic monitoring
http://www.metimes.com/Security/2008/01/30/analysis_nato_begins_pandemic_monitoring/de2f/
WASHINGTON, Jan. 30 (UPI) -- NATO recently became the latest agency, and the first military one, to sign up for the Global Public Health Intelligence Network, an international initiative that monitors media and other open-source material 24/7 for signs of emerging pandemics and other public health disasters.
The network, based in Ottawa and known by its initials GPHIN, is an "early-warning system using media to detect public health events," GPHIN Senior Surveillance Officer Richard Lemay told United Press International in a recent interview….

CIBER Hosts Feb. 12 Disaster Readiness Webinar for State and Local Government Leaders
http://sev.prnewswire.com/computer-electronics/20080130/LAW10630012008-1.html

CSC to move HQ to Falls Church
http://www.washingtontechnology.com/online/1_1/32170-1.html
Computer Sciences Corp. has announced that it will move its corporate headquarters to Falls Church, Va., from El Segundo, Calif.
The consolidation to Northern Virginia “is without a doubt the right move to power CSC’s accelerated growth and expansion,” said Michael Laphen, the company’s chairman, president and chief executive officer, in a written statement.