Looks like the military may have found a new source for our tax dollars: iPhones for soldiers. According to David Bruemmer and Douglas Few, scientists at the US Department of Energy Center in Idaho, the iPhone could replace the Panasonic ToughBooks soldiers are currently using to communicate with each other, receive messages from a home base, and even interface with remote-controlled Wiimote-controlled robots. We kid you not.

Personally, I’m all for the use of technology in military applications, but I can think of dozens of devices that are better suited to rugged applications than the iPhone. The iPhone is a great phone but Apple made many compromises in order to make it sexy- something the military shouldn’t exactly be concerned about.