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Bringing the network to warfighters will be futile without a source of energy to feed the numerous devices they will rely on for survival and lethality. Today's fast-paced high-technology battlespace is screaming for long-lasting, lightweight batteries, and the U.S. Army is answering the call by exploring battery chemistries and smart batteries as well as working with equipment designers. In some areas, the service has made great advances; in others, it is still waiting for the technological improvements that industry promised years ago.

Warfighters soon may turn to the sun to recharge their battlefield electronics. The U.S government is developing highly efficient solar cells that will be built into batteries and tactical equipment such as night vision goggles, personal navigation devices and radios. The effort seeks to cut the number of spare batteries carried by soldiers to save weight and reduce logistics requirements.

People and materiel soon may be moving across the ocean much more quickly and outrunning torpedoes in the process. A developmental technology will use supercavitation to move underwater vessels at high speeds. In addition to the rapid rate, the project aims to sustain that pace over long periods of time and to maintain control and steering of the watercraft.

A new class of mechanical devices with embedded electronics will allow personnel to access maintenance panels and equipment in aircraft and other platforms rapidly and without the use of tools. The technology permits the remote closing, locking and unlocking of fasteners via wireless handheld devices. The fasteners also are equipped with sensors to report their status and that of the structures immediately surrounding them, offering the potential for smart logistics and vehicle diagnostic systems.

In a Naval Institute Press publication, Inside the Iron Works: How Grumman's Glory Days Faded, George Skurla, the former chief executive officer of Grumman Aerospace, and William H. Gregory describe the failures and downfall, 30 years ago, of one of our leading naval aviation manufacturers. After reading this obituary it is easy to draw parallels to the specter that has befallen many current defense companies and acquisition guardians. We all recognize that there are many other factors responsible—congressional political influence, policy dictums, service secretaries and chiefs of service. But doesn't anyone realize that the U.S. Defense Department is suffocating under unaffordable cost overruns, catastrophic failures in engineering design, poor manufacturing quality and incompetent technical government oversight?

Iraqi insurgents are not the only adversaries adept at adapting—cybervillains also have learned to transform their tactics and circumvent new ways of protecting information infrastructures. Despite improvements in security software and practices, crackers, criminals and even nation-states continue to take advantage of an unsecured Domain Name System, flawed technologies and minimal testing and commercialization options for researchers.

The federal government is exploring new technologies to ensure vital communications links among government officials in times of crisis. At the heart of these efforts is the worldwide transition to Internet protocol telephony and its broad capabilities. Given the global nature of these communications changes, the government is turning to the international test arena to evaluate new priority telecommunications approaches.

The United States needs a national emergency communications architecture to provide standards that public safety responders at all levels can rely on for coordination of efforts. Legislation could be necessary to ensure that commercial carriers are part of the solution as the government seeks to leverage commercial, state, federal and defense assets to form a standardized emergency network.

The purpose of artificial intelligence is to create systems that are capable of human-level reasoning. One practical outcome of this research is the capability to make technology invisible to the user. Increasing automation and autonomy are beginning to appear in applications ranging from robots capable of independently navigating and mapping terrain to interfaces that can understand spoken commands to wireless communications systems that automatically configure themselves.

Military artificial intelligence programs are making humans, not systems, the focus of their development efforts as they study methods to make tools easier to use. Programs are being focused on using artificial intelligence to free people for the most important tasks and incorporating automation to save lives.