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Trekkie Communicators Now a Reality

Posted by michael on from the scotty,-beam-down-some-more-red-shirts dept.

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.

17 of 355 comments (clear)

  1. Yeah, by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    but does it make the classic "deet deet" sound?

  2. Not as fast as Star Trek by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny
    I bet they are not as fast as the ones on Star Trek. Ever notice that the computer on Star Trek semes to route the connection before the target name is given.

    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.

    1. Re:Not as fast as Star Trek by ackthpt · · Score: 5, Funny
      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.

      The real fantasy here is that Worf, or anyone in your workplace, will answer a communicator that fast. Has there *ever* been a busy signal?

      "Lt. Worf is on a nother line, please hold. ..dah-dah-dahhhh..dah-daddah-dah-dahhh..."

      Now when you face someone who appears to be talking to you, you won't see a headset and think they may be on a call. This should add to confusion. (Like that funny phone commercial where the woman comes onto tha man, she's unaware is on a call.)

      --

      A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
    2. Re:Not as fast as Star Trek by drwiii · · Score: 5, Funny

      The real reason Q was pissed off at humanity, of course, is that there was no letter Q on traditional phones. Nobody could key his name into the company phone directory to find his extension. You try spending a few centuries getting only wrong number calls and see how you turn out.

    3. Re:Not as fast as Star Trek by bebing · · Score: 5, Funny

      Ensign Jones: *hits communicator* 'Captain, I have received reports that there
      may be a bug in certain ship software, is Holodeck 1 running?'
      Captain Picard: 'Why yes, it is running.'
      Ensign Jones: 'You'd better go catch it!'

      Ensign Jones: *hits communicator* 'Guinin, do you have Klingon Prince Garduk in
      a can?'
      Guinin: 'Why, yes we do'
      Ensign Jones: 'You'd better let him out then!'

    4. Re:Not as fast as Star Trek by starm_ · · Score: 5, Funny

      "No real delay"

      That true, there is some weird shit happening to time in general in Star Trek. Did you notice how, all incidents seem to be resolved within an hour of time?

      Also they have events that for us in our universe would take much longer than in the Star Trek Universe. The one you mensioned about the communicator is one. But did you also notice poker games last only a few minutes? Same thing with meetings, meals, surgery, war battles, rarely these events last more then 10 minutes whereas here in our universe they would all last hours or days.

      And also everyone and everything in the "Star Trek Universe" seem to take a break every ten-fifteen minutes so that the television channels can show us a commercial. Its true! Try to notice next time you watch, after a commercial you never feel like you missed anything. Nothing happened during that time, its almost like time "froze" for that period. Also you'll notice they take more breaks towards the end of the hour maybe its because they get tired.

  3. Man oh man.. by hookedup · · Score: 5, Funny

    Scotty at work is really going to hate me...

  4. Next Logical Step... by adamgreenfield · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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
    1. Re:Next Logical Step... by pvt_medic · · Score: 5, Interesting

      just intigrate this technology of picking up words that havent been spoken yet

      Slashdot Thread on it

      --
      30% Troll, 50% Underrated, 10% Interesting
      Score:5, Troll
    2. Re:Next Logical Step... by hrbrmstr · · Score: 5, Informative

      We evaluated Vocera last year. Really nice tech, but it wasn't - buzzword warning - enterprise ready. While it may work in one building, the server-side of it isn't scalable (or wasn't - I haven't looked at them since). It didn't help their case that it was Windows-based (get a virus/worm, lose communications *:^).

      The lanyard-attached phone was pretty nice (since I can easily lose my cell phone as well) and I believe you can get a headset if you need to keep the receiving end private. I can still see those annoying/loud conversations popping up much more with these units, tho.

      The routing capabilities worked well and it would be great for our help desk and emergency incident response teams. Being able to say "Where's Bill?" and get a response was also pretty cool. It's only as accurate as the nearest associated access point, but it's still better then not knowing which side of the building some is on.

      Once they get more enterprise features (integration, scalability, global functionality) we'll probably adopt it in key areas.

      --
      Mind the gap...
    3. Re:Next Logical Step... by warpSpeed · · Score: 5, Funny
      BlueTooth ear pieces?

      BlueTooth neural implants

      3 am Tech support calls take on a whole new dimention. "Man, I was dreaming that the server kept going down last night."

  5. Simliar to wifi, but not quite. by dealsites · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

    1. Re:Simliar to wifi, but not quite. by Toxygen · · Score: 5, Funny

      You've never been married, have you?

  6. Re:Big badge by dubiousdave · · Score: 5, Funny

    Yeah, it won't take long before Linux is ported to them and we see roving Beowulf clusters chirping all over the place.

    --
    Thank you. Drive through.
  7. Tag ... You're it by Chief+Technovelgist · · Score: 5, Funny
    New office game - walk up to someone, tap their communicator, say the name of the president of the company and walk away. You're it!

    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.

  8. Precognition is the answer by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny
    Anyone who has ever worked on a Federation Star Ship knows that the comm. system uses a "defocused temporal perception" to give the comm. system a limited sort of precognition. The inventor of the system claimed he got the technology for it from a parallel universe of sorts, that he stole it from an elevator system (the "Happy Vertical People Transporter") at a parallel universe corporation called the "Sirius Cybernetics Corporation". No one knows what he's talking about.

    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.


    Modern elevators are strange and complex entities. The ancient electric winch and "maximum-capacity-eight-persons" jobs bear as much relation to a Sirius Cybernetics Corporation Happy Vertical People Transporter as a packet of mixed nuts does to the entire west wing of the Sirian State Mental Hospital.

    This is because they operate on the curios principle of "defocused temporal perception". In other words they have the capacity to see dimly into the immediate future, which enables the elevator to be on the right floor to pick you up even before you knew you wanted it, thus eliminating all the tedious chatting, relaxing, and making friends that people were previously forced to do whist waiting for elevators.

    Not unnaturally, many elevators imbued with intelligence and precognition became terribly frustrated with the mindless business of going up and down, up and down, experimented briefly with the notion of going sideways, as a sort of existential protest, demanded participation in the decision-making process and finally took to squatting in basements sulking.

    An impoverished hitch-hiker visiting any planets in the Sirius star system these days can pick up easy money working as a counsellor for neurotic elevators.

    --Douglas Adams, "Restaurant at the End of the Universe"

  9. Re:Scalability by thrillseeker · · Score: 5, Funny
    What do they do if there are two people with the same name?

    One of them is awarded a red shirt.