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Communicator Clothing

Posted by samzenpus on from the can-you-wear-me-now dept.

coondoggie writes "The crew of the classic science-fiction show's Starship Enterprise wore small devices on their chests that they could tap to communicate instantly with their colleagues. Such communications technology is now closer to reality thanks to a Finnish company which this week demonstrated high-tech clothing that can send and receive messages via satellite. The demonstrator antenna, built by the Patria Aviation Oy company, looks like a simple patch of cloth but is capable of operating in the Iridium and GPS frequency band as part of clothing. The Iridium satellites allow two-way voice and data communication, while GPS provides positional data to the user. Iridium could also relay the position of the user."

5 of 134 comments (clear)

  1. chests? by martin-boundary · · Score: 4, Informative

    I thought the classic crew had to press a button on the wall and talk into the microphone?

    1. Re:chests? by CyprusBlue113 · · Score: 4, Informative

      Bad summary, the specific (first instance) show is Star Trek: The Next Generation. The origional series did not have wearable communicators, but instead, handheld devices.

      --
      a handful of selfish greedy people are no match for millions of selfish, greedy people -u4ya
  2. picture by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Informative
    The article shows a poorly sketched picture - the type you'd do on MS Word Art when you were 12.

    Going to the website, a proto example of is here

  3. Re:Keeps happening by admiralex · · Score: 2, Informative

    Just as a point of clarification -- not that this poster is inferring anything wrong -- but the TNG communicators were not part of the uniforms, they were attached to the shirt like a broach. If you didn't want to be contacted/tracked, you took the communicator pin off and you couldn't be tracked by that method. Of course that didn't stop ship's sensors from finding you whenever they wanted to, but it's not as if they were implanted.

  4. Incorrect by PolarIced · · Score: 2, Informative

    The crew of "Star Trek: The Next Generation" used the insignias you could tap on as communicators. The original Star Trek series had flip-open handheld devices which they wore on their belts.

    Sheesh! What is Slashdot coming to these days?