The Joint Chiefs of Staff is taking the next evolutionary step in multinational and interagency interoperability this month with the renaming of one of the U.S. military's premier events. The Joint Warrior Interoperability Demonstration is now officially the Coalition Warrior Interoperability Demonstration, which better reflects its ongoing metamorphosis from a purely service-centric technology showcase to a forum where participants from diverse organizations and many nations work on different types of interoperability. Future events will continue to focus on capabilities that can be delivered to the warfighter quickly, a change that was introduced in the 2004 event.

The Defense Information Systems Agency, in cooperation with U.S. Joint Forces Command and U.S. Strategic Command, is demonstrating new command and control capabilities this month. The pilot event, called Oktoberfest, illustrates 31 services from the agency's Net-Centric Enterprise Services program, command and control communities of interest services, mission-specific services and the user-defined operational picture. It provides key mission capabilities that support combatant command mission-approved threads, including services that provide situational awareness and

As defense simulation grows more complex and more capable, it is segmenting just as it moves toward greater interoperability. Instead of diverse simulations evolving into a single, all-encompassing synthetic battlespace, the course is toward individual activities or systems simulated by powerful computing technologies. The goal of modeling developers is to treat these new simulations as modules and assemble them into large-scale simulations that are tailored to trainees' or commanders' requirements.

A cross-service network that shares sensitive but unclassified information among U.S. Defense Department installations is moving nationwide. The Web-portal technology allows users to document and immediately disseminate information regarding potential threats to personnel, facilities and resources to meet antiterrorism and force protection needs.

The two-year-old U.S. combatant command tasked with both homeland security and homeland defense is juggling conflicting requirements as it strives to establish a vital infostructure. The U.S. Northern Command, or NORTHCOM, must balance the need to deter, prevent and defeat threats to the United States with legal limitations on domestic information sharing. This poses both technological and organizational challenges to intelligence dissemination and communications.

A prototype information management and communications technology soon will provide warfighters with near-real-time intelligence. The network-based system collects imagery, video and other data from airborne and ground-based sensors and stores it in specialized servers. Commanders can then access this raw information for needed materials without waiting for analysts to process it.

The Iraq War has provided a wealth of lessons that already are being applied to diverse U.S. Army intelligence disciplines such as sensors, situational awareness, information dissemination and secure conferencing. The Army has been incorporating many of these lessons by accelerating some programs and altering others, and many of these activities are supporting the ongoing Army transformation while others are altering its course.

Many of us who live inside the Washington, D.C., beltway are considering the ramifications of the 9/11 Commission Report. Foremost among the commission's recommendations is the establishment of a director of national intelligence, or DNI. Experts are split on whether this new position would help eliminate intelligence shortcomings and increase efficiency, or whether it would impart lasting damage on the intelligence community when our nation is faced with a deadly menace.

Rapid changes in both technology and U.S. military missions are mandating that information systems plans be comprehensive as well as flexible. Within this transformational environment, most organizations recognize the need for strategic plans that improve their ability to accomplish their goals; however, many times these plans fail to achieve the desired results.

Engineers have updated and improved a 60-year-old lens antenna technology to create a low-cost, high-gain steerable microwave antenna for satellite tracking applications. Conceived in 1944, the Luneberg lens currently is being employed to maintain two-way satellite contact when a satellite, a receiver or both are moving.