Drakontas LLC, a firm based in New Jersey, USA, has developed something called DragonForce, a "high-powered PDA" combined with a GPS unit. This allows soldiers and police officers to "track one another on a digital map ... [and] draw instructions in a 'whiteboard' mode, John Madden-style, and have the X's, O's and arrows show up on the officers' PDA screens instantly."

This is effectively first-generation BattleTac -- read about it here

I'll give them bouns points for including "Dragon" in the brand name. That almost counts as telegraphing where they got the idea from, but I'm sure they'd deny it if asked.

hmm, a similar system was put into the minimap in guild wars.

yes its a mmorpg, but it was still a nice way to simulate how it works.

you could use your mouse to dram onto the map, and everyone in your party would see the same drawings appear and then fade out after some time.

hell, the military have long had similar systems for their vehicles so that a scout could report back to hq about any enemys spotted. this would then be relayed onto a digital map in the cocpit of any vehicle hooked into the system. its known as the digital battlefield.

its only that as more accurate gps, low cost pdas and wireless networking systems have become more available that we will see it show up in other areas.