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Star Trek Tech That Exists Today

Posted by Soulskill on from the where-are-my-self-sealing-stembolts dept.

Esther Schindler writes "When Star Trek hit the air waves, talking computers were just a pipe dream. While teleportation remains elusive, several once-fictional technologies are changing the way people live and work. Here are some ways in which we're approaching the gizmos that Star Trek demonstrated. Speech recognition? Check. Holodeck? Sort of. Replicator? Workin' on it."

4 of 207 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Not really... by MozeeToby · · Score: 4, Interesting

    But they leave off the ones that have actually been realized. Communicators the size of a lapel pin were wild conjecture at the time of the original series. Automatic doors were a new idea. I'm sure there are other examples of 'Star Trek Tech' that we completely and utterly take for granted today.

  2. Re:iPhone by CubicleZombie · · Score: 4, Interesting

    2001 A Space Odyssey: The "Newspad", in 1968. Heywood Floyd used one to download from major news media over the "ether" while on his way to the space station. In the movie, there are two of them on the Discovery and they look very similar to iPads.

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    :wq
  3. Missing from the Article: by tekrat · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Communicators: DUH! Motorola even named the first Flip-phone the "Star Tac" -- how did the author miss this OBVIOUS one?

    Bluetooth headsets: See those chrome things coming out of everyone's ears on TOS?

    3.5" Floppies: Pretty much the EXACT same form factor, and painted as brightly as the "rainbow assortment" of disks I used to buy a Staples. They were called Tapes in TOS, but they fed into a slot and appeared to work exactly the same way.

    A Space Vehicle named Enterprise : ok, this one is reaching a bit since that Shuttle never went into space, and this is a case of life imitating art, but still.... it's worth noting.

    iPads -- tablets: TNG had the PADD, which tied into the LCARS system. Even before then Kirk in TOS was seen holding some kind of electronic clipboard, although it was never really shown on camera as the tech didn't exist back then to even fake a tablet, but the idea was clearly getting there.

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    If telephones are outlawed, then only outlaws will have telephones.
  4. Re:iPhone by Wingfat · · Score: 1, Interesting

    agreed :) +1 to you. i was going to mention 2001 as well. But they (and the ST ones) look more like a Toshiba Excite or Sony S1 than an iPad. (NO ONE IN THE FUTRUE USES WHITE PLASTIC, execpt for Storm Troopers and the imperial guard, then it is for cloths not gadgets. Everyone knows Space is dirty hehehe)