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Trekkie Communicators Now a Reality
SolFire writes "Forbes is carrying an article about Vocera Communications and their little internal communication system that they have working at their office that functions like the badge communicators from ST:TNG. The employees wear the system as a badge and touch it to start the connection. Then they speak the name of the person they want to talk to and the system connects them using VOIP for one-on-one communication." We mentioned these in 2002.
but does it make the classic "deet deet" sound?
Data: Data to Lt Worf.
No real delay
Worf (over comms): Go ahead Data.
The delay is only enough for Worf to open his mouth and talk. It is not long enough to replay "Data to Lt Worf." I freely admit I'm crazy.
Scotty at work is really going to hate me...
It's also easy to integrate the system with desktop phones and mobile phones. The database software allows the device to forward its messages to phones and pagers and also can accept calls forwarded from phones.
This would seem to be the next logical step for the Nextel style "walk-talkie" communications. In a few years we will all be taping our shirts to answer our phones, but the only real limiting factor I see here is I cannot really imagine everyone using a cell phone today escentially walking around talking on a speaker phone. It would be so overwhelming that you would hardly be able to carry on a conversation.
It that ends up the case, I'm sure we will all be sitting around telling people how we remember the good old days when you could actually hear yourself think in a public place.
If they could make the whole thing fit into an ear piece, and just use the mini-boom mic that you see on a lot of cell phone head sets now, they would probably spread like wild fire, but all I have to say is I have a hard enough time not losing my cell phone as is.
-Adam C. Greenfield
... might help prevent all the double posts we get regarding VOIP articles.
What do they do if there are two people with the same name?
That is one heck of a badge from the picture they show. I was thinking of the little triangle pin-on from Star Trek.
...everyone answers to "Nerd".
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
...is just gonna look like a homeless wacko saying "can you hear me now?" just staring into the sky...
They should have used a wifi standard. They could have sold to a larger market. Many cities (ie, Verizon in Manhattan) are putting up wifi hot spots. Then you wouldn't be limited to the office. People could also use it around the house if it could patch into the POTS network.
Someone could use it around the house while watching TV to alert the wife that a new cold beer is needed.
--
Real-time deal updates from major deal sites.
Shatner uses these to dictate his albums to his secretary...
"Dr. Johnson, please finish your business and get back to Ward 3"
Sometimes you need a little peace and quiet.
Under capitalism man exploits man. Under communism it's the other way around.
There is no way I will ever be able to talk my wife into letting me have one of these setups. Darn!
Imagine how cool when you forgot your hand over your badge and start saying things you shouldn't be saying :)
It'd look a little odd to see someone walking down the road, repeatedly tapping their chest, saying "Robert! *smack* Ro-bert! *smack* Robbberrrtt! *smack* "
Maybe it uses the NASA technology to know what your going to say b4 you say it SlashDot -Auger
What they've produced is an ugly little box which you keep in your pocket, purse or belt. What they could have had -- for minimal extra investment -- is something that people would be proud to show off. Vocera need to have a conversation with the folk at Apple.
Slashdot monitor for your Mozilla sidebar or Active Desktop.
In this story from last month's issue, Fast Company talks about VOIP tech and specifically these communicators being used at a hospital.
666-607: 6th floor apartment of the beast
Oh great, I can just see this at the hospital
*beep* Doctor Smith, this is the Lab, Mrs. Thompson's results came back positive for chlamydia.
I'd be more impressed with a belt-pack which communicated with a small earbud via bluetooth or similar.
Article also mentions paging for an anesthesiologist and getting the closest one. I wonder if they do that based on the AP, or if they have plans to add a GPS receiver. Considering the amount of interference in a hospital, I can't see GPS working.
On a more serious note, the badge, if you stick on your breast pocket, will have one heck of a time picking up your voice, especially in a noisy enviroment. Otherwise you will have to bow your head and pull your shirt up. Looks quite odd.
Indefinitely Detained US Citizen
Does anyone have any idea what these little gizmos cost? Vocera seems to be one of those mysteriously vague businesses who want their "partners" to push "solutions" rather than slapping on a price tag and raking in the bucks.
I use my hands free kit now. I touch the button on the ear piece, speak the name of the person I wish to call and voila, I'm one of the teaming masses walking around looking like I'm talking to myself. So ok, this is located on the shirt ala ST and uses the PTT model, ho hum.
What I want is a blue tooth hands free kit that's small and comfortable enough to keep in your ear (and doesn't make you look like a 'tard, figuratively and literally) that has a very easy way to dock it seamlessly into your phone.
The title should be updated. A Trekkie communicator brings to mind Captain Kirk flipping open a palm-held device. A Trekker communicator indicates a lappel-pinned badge. Please be more diligent when posts involve Star Trek sub-cultures.
... now, should I post this anonymously, or openly attach my geek-code
If only we Trekkies had someone to talk to...
"How come Homer and Krusty look like clones?"
It was to show the irony that Bart did not respect Homer, while at the same time idolizing Krusty (essentially the same person).
Online Starcraft RPG? At
Dietary fiber is like asynchronous IO-- Non-blocking!
Look at the iPod, the only real reason why it is taking off is becase it is fashionable. If I had a cell phone, that had a bluetooth headset, and a pin that did the conecting I would be happy. I don't like carrying my phone around, but a simple decorative item(changable covers anyone????) with a bluetooth headset for a private converstion would be really cool.
i thought once I was found, but it was only a dream.
I can't even sit at my desk for two minutes straight without a user bothering me for something, even though they've been told time and again that the proper channel for non-emergencies is email (for me, at least). I think that phone calls and unannounced visits are the all-time biggest productivity-busters in existence. I think a communicator-style device would suck. I had a fleet of 70 Nextels for my users originally, but when you can't even escape the direct-connects when you're trying to concentrate, you soon realize how harmful they are to productivity.
I can see this company doing a couple of things different with this device. One, use a different protocol for transmission of the signal. I work in a office where our sales reps are always out when you need them to be here to answer questions. If this device had a hard set IP address, that is routeable, at least if the sales rep was near a hot spot, you could get ahold of them. Also, it would be nice to see some better design with this device. It's isn't huge or anything, but it needs to be stylish, something that this model does lack. Also the ability to encrypt any communication just in case you don't want evesdroppers and script kiddies sniffing your network or hearing what's going on.
Personally, I would like to see a earbud or something, just in case you wife calls you and wants to talk about what she want to do to you when you come home.
eh, this sucks, I am going back to bed....
You don't even need a boom mic. I've got a Jabra ear piece that doesn't need a boom. The nice trick would be a keyword that would facilitate activation of the comm link. Voice activation for all functions. The biggest problem with making it an entirely in-the-ear unit would be radiation from the antenna being that close to your melon.
In a few years to integrate GPS and be able to say "Computer, locate CmdrTaco". Or how about Google's former voice search?
Google's CTO Craig Silverstein has already said his grand vision for google in the future would be something along the lines of When search grows up, it will look like Star Trek: you talk into the air ("Computer! What's the situation down on the planet?") and the computer processes your question, figures out its context, figures out what response you're looking for, searches a giant database in who-knows-how-many languages, translates/analyses/summarises all the results, and presents them back to you in a pleasant voice.
With a few more technologies like this, it's only inevitable this WILL happen.
beep. was that my cellphone? or...my email?..or IM?..or my cellphone walkie-talkie? or my pager?.or my badge?
At least this is an ST technology that works. Once on the set of the original Trek in 1967, an executive for a tech company saw the automatic doors. You just walk up to them and *whoosh* they open. No big sensor doormat, no nothing. He offered a million dollars for the technology.
The "technology" turned out to be two stagehands who yanked them open JIT.
Check out push to talk.
I agree that the communicator style won't (or shouldn't, imho) bode well for public communication.
From the hardwired rotary of the past to the 24th century communicator, we're evolving from both sides into something ~almost, but not quite entirely~ like the phones we have today. You're suggesting a small phone with voice dialing almost perfectly.
I remember an Apple Quadra commercial from 1990 or 91 where a little kid says, 'Computer, call Grandma.' The only different thing 14 years later is the form factor.
We mentioned these in 2002.
And you will again in 2005.
-kgj
-kgj
i've decided, after reading several other unrelated stories here on slashdot, that this sort of thing doesn't go far enough.
want something really badass? combine these communicators with the "campus ghosts" concept. throw in a gps. tie it all back in to a huge server farm in the bowels of some university.
now you can smack your communicator and address the computer (with it's awexome speech recognition capabilities and limited AI) directly, and ask it for directions; or maybe just what's on the menu at the cafe, or if there are any books left in a particular subject at the bookstore.
you could smack it up and set it to "record mode" so that it picked up your professor's lecture, and then later you could grep through it verbally, or have the text or audio file uploaded to your desktop. set reminders on the thing, ask it for definitions of words or have it call off a formula to you, or send the text to your pda.
hell, you could even ask it for a weather report or world news.
of course, this is largely based on "Prime Intellect" from the online novel of the same name - uh . . . only, without all the reality warping and stuff.
i'm just sayin . . . hurry up with the future. i need a little electronic elf to keep up with my crap and make sure i don't kill myself in some dumbass fashion.
** Chigusaaa!!! You're the coolest girl in the WORLD!!! **
Right could you imagine it.
*Taps badge* "Scotty the shredder is full!"
Though if you were running alerting sofware it would be easy to incorporate this into your system.
Imagine if you could recieve a "comm" from your server telling you *Dave, my resources are getting low.*
I am Bennett Haselton! I am Bennett Haselton!
Congratulations, you have just asked the exact same question that someone else already asked earlier in the thread, in addition to ignoring even the short description of the article.
-- Christopher Schmidt YouTube Quality of Experience
What Star Trek doesn't show you, is the many hours each day that the Ship's Counselor has to spend working with the comm. system just to get it to want to work. Apparently the system suffers some of sort of depression. I don't understand it.
And when one of these badges freezes up, you can reset it by tapping the button twice and shouting "REBOOT!"
And then we will be done.
...is this going to get left on accidentally. People will be getting fired left and right.
Or will people learn real quickly not to say "stupid (*&*(&" as soon as they hang up the phone.
If moderation could change anything, it would be illegal.
Every other geek's Star Trek wishlist:
1) Seven-of-Nine
2) Holodecks (see #1)
3) Faster than light travel
4) Shuttles that levitate
5) Replicators
6) Teleportation
..
...
9,472,381,478,471,832,741,592,158) Communicators
"No prints can come from fingers / If machines become our hands." -- Jack Johnson
Who cares about a stupid badge communicator? WHERE THE HELL ARE OUR PHASERS GODDAMMIT!!! Looks like the research community needs to focus on the important things.
> I always wanted to say, "Open channel D,"
> into my fountain pen.
I'm sorry, but exactly what is stopping you?
Norman Cook's Ode to Sl
"One study by the First Consulting Group, a healthcare consultancy based in Long Beach, Calif., found that when the 300-bed St. Agnes Healthcare facility in Baltimore deployed the Vocera system, its nurses saved more than 1,100 hours a year, while the entire organization saved some 3,400 hours."
They only have three nurses?
Ha! When these come in, my call name's going to be "Supreme Commander of the Universe."
"Butthead to Supreme Commander of the Universe, it's not funny anymore, change my name back."
"Derp de derp."
there is an other way...
"The "telephone tooth" would place a small device in a person's back molar that includes a wireless, low-frequency receiver and a gadget that turns audio signals into mechanical vibrations, which would pass from the tooth directly to the inner ear as clear sounds. "
If you were wasting time on /. as early as I was this morning you'd know they just have one of these on every starship too.
I wonder if it was extra or just standard equipment by then.
No sig for you!!
"Computer, locate Dr. Vidal!"
Dr. Vidal is taking a dump in the third floor men's lavatory.
--Rob
Towards the Singularity.
...this planet sucks.
The devices are very cool. You sign in with your voice (the system stores a voice print that authenticates you). It knows who else is logged in to the system and can locate them if you assign locations to the AP's (big brother calling). It also ties in to your pbx system so you can dial the phone,"call 222-222-1342". Has a series of voice commands-voice recognition. You can setup groups and do group calls. A hospital is using it for paging/communications system in house. Devices are small and can be clipped on or hung on your neck with a lanyard. Can be used by multiple people. If the battery runs low, you sign off, drop the old one back in the charger. Pick up a new one and sign in and off you go. You can set it to "not disturb" you. And it tells you who is calling first (screen those calls) before you answer. Much more intelligence built into the server, this device has great potential... Now to program them to order chinese food for me automatically....
I had the chance to use these and evaluate rolling them out on a large scale. They are excelent little devices. Most of the innovation here is in the software, the keys are in the voice recognition and badge tracking. For the most part the system was very well thought out.
I've read a couple of post saying (probably joking) that they want all sorts of features in the badges, bluetooth, linux, etc. No, No, they've got it all wrong and vocera got it right, the badges are as simple and cheap as can be, they only have 3 buttons, and a simple LCD display. So all the battery life can be spent on the WIFI.
There is a regular headphone/mic jack on the badges.
The units work very well, and the feature of auto-forwarding to cell phones is great.
The management software is all written in Java, and changes quite often, as this is all coming from small company and bugs are fixed and features added all the time.
It'd be cool if the system was set up such that you can ask it where someone is, and have them located via GPS on the badge.
Picard: "Computer, where is Commander Laforge?"
Computer: "Commander Laforge is in the 10 Forward restroom, Stall 3."
wbs.
Huh?
I wonder whether anyone has modded a a cellphone with voice-recognition into a 1967-style ST communicator. Seems to me that it would be easy to do, especially the part where you flop open the mesh cover to the tune of that neat cicada sound...