It's official. War has not only gone digital, it may be going hand-held, too. The U.S. Army reportedly plans to begin trials in the U.S. next week to test a variety of off-the-shelf hand-held devices such as Apple iPhones, Android (News - Alert) phones and tablet computers for use in war.

The Wall Street Journal has reported that beginning next week, military personnel will begin carrying out “stress tests” on not only hardware but a variety of applications that “could allow troops to tap digital information from the front lines–for instance, streaming video from a surveillance camera, or downloading up-to-the minute information from a remote database,” said the WSJ.

Obviously, it would be impractical to give every soldier in the field a smart phone or tablet computer, the military acknowledges. But Gen. Peter Chiarelli, the U.S. Army's vice chief of staff, recently said that if the devices proved themselves in testing, the service would “buy what we need for who needs it now.”

One app that particularly interests the military is one that would allow an injured soldier to determine and relay his location to medical personnel in the field, reported Digital Trends. In trials, Army officials hope to determine whether such an app would really reduce the speed to treatment for the wounded or would actually hinder the process with extra administrative steps.

Another exclusive-to-the-military app called “SoldierEyes” is a navigation tool designed to allow soldiers to use the phone’s camera to survey surroundings and use something called “augmented reality” to calculate the direction and distance to a target. Another app would give soldiers mobile biometrics tools for identifying particular enemies, reported Digital Trends.

But first the devices must prove themselves in the field, says the military.

“We want to give people the right phones for the right reasons, not just give them another shiny thing to hang on their equipment carriers,” said Michael McCarthy, one of the Army heads in charge of the smartphone project.

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