Hyperbole Man Strikes Again!

Look, we get it - it's a big deal that a DARPA project is transitioning to a system of record, but TIGR was hardly a "breakthrough multimedia reporting system" when FusionNet did the same thing. Heck, even CIDNE did the same thing if you were willing to be bound by their network/accessibility constraints.

A breakthrough multimedia reporting system for troops patrolling in Afghanistan and Iraq has officially joined the Army's portfolio.

The Tactical Ground Reporting tool, known as TIGR, was created by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) in response to Soldiers' needs to digitally capture, report and retrieve patrol data such as common incidents, residents and leaders of a village. TIGR transitioned from DARPA program management to the Army's Project Manager Force XXI Battle Command Brigade-and-Below (PM FBCB2) on Oct. 1.

"TIGR is a remarkable tool that DARPA was able to get out to deployed units quickly, and rapidly develop it in line with what the Soldiers needed on the ground for their counterinsurgency missions," said Col. Thomas Olson, project manager for FBCB2, which is assigned to the Program Executive Office for Command, Control and Communications-Tactical (PEO C3T). "The Army looks forward to building upon this work, by integrating what Soldiers like best about TIGR into our next-generation FBCB2 systems."

The transition comes as the original TIGR application is growing more versatile, with versions for handheld devices, vehicles and command posts heavily involved in the semi-annual Network Integration Evaluation (NIE) events, which have the mission to rapidly advance the Army's tactical network.

It's nice that the troops got a great system to use. But it was hardly the only one of it's kind, and trying to pump it up as such is pretty disingenuous on the part of the article author/PR flacks.

By: Brant