Boldly Going Where No Techfiction Has Gone Before With Star Trek

It’s hard to imagine a television show that has had more examples of techfiction becomie techfact than the original Star Trek series. The multimedia franchise has a grip on the collective unconsciousness of geeks on the level of few other things. While the movies and spin-offs have their own assortment of impressive gadgetry made real, the original television series inspired a great number of products that we regularly use today.

Chirp, Chirp

The telecommunications industry is a great place to find techfact from Star Trek (Trekfact?). Remember flip phones? While they have fallen out of vogue as of late, once upon a time, it was the desired form factor. Gosh, I wonder why?

A phone called StarTAC? Gosh, what does that sound like?

Slate style phones are now the most popular kind of smartphones, but another form of communication used frequently on the classic Star Trek is now no longer fiction. For those born in the last couple of decades, it has become second nature to use Skype, Facetime, etc. to communicate with others the same way previous generations adapted to the use of mobile phones. Talking to each other via computer may not have originated with Star Trek, but the show certainly popularized the concept.

Also originating on Trek? Kickass home theaters.

People didn’t just get ideas about different ways to talk to each other using technology from Star Trek; we also learned new and different ways to talk to machines. Used Siri lately? I never understood why Apple didn’t take a note from Motorola’s dealing with LucasFilm and license the likeness and voice of the original Star Trek computer, Majel Rodenberry. After all, Steve Jobs didn’t like the name Siri, so why not go with the obvious inspiration?

Speaking of speaking, don’t forget universal translators. While Google Translate has a ways to go before it can assist you in communicating in a language it has never been exposed to, the translation tech behind it, and other translation software, opens a whole new realm of personal interactions.

Yes, even Klingon.

I’m a Doctor, Jim, not a — Oh.

How do you like your tricoder? And no, I’m not talking about smartphones. The thing about tricorders, the portable computers carried by Star Trek away missions, is that they were connected devices, linking the away team back to the computer on the Enterprise. So, if you use a cloud device, you use a variation on the tricorder. While it may not be an actual tricorder, the Tricorder Project is trying to make one with all of the show-accurate sensors.

Hopefully with a larger screen and better user interface.

Star Trek’s replicators were mainly used for food in the original series and we may not quite be at that level with 3D printing, but we can print tissue, so who knows what’s next? The creation of 3D printed-tissue shouldn’t come as a surprise because a lot of medical technology was thought up by or popularized by Star Trek as well. Doctor McCoy never used needles. Rather, he used a hypospray. Even though the concept of jet-injection actually pre-dates the television show, most were unaware of this method until seeing Bones use a hypspray on an unruly patient. People are still talking about the possible uses of this fascinatingly old tech. Additionally, while we may not have the diagnostic beds seen in the sickbay of the NCC-1701, people are working on making that a reality too.

Note: Does not work on Red Shirts.

Leaving aside technology that helps those in pain, there’s the creation of tech that focuses on causing pain. While a taser might not be a beamed weapon, being hit by one is the equivalent of being hit by a phaser set on stun. The name taser may come from another work of fiction (Thomas A Swift’s Electronic Rifle), but the concept of it being a standard issue weapon is totally Trek in nature.

What’s waiting to launch?

NASA has been adamant about warp drives being an impossibility, but the impulse drive, on the other hand, is actually in the testing phase. Forgive my inner geek as it does cartwheels.

The most famous bit of Star Trek tech is probably the teleporter. “Beam me up, Scotty” is the most famous quote from the show (even if the line was never actually uttered). While this remains a fairly fantastic concept, there are hints that it may not be as insanely out there as once thought.

Pretty impressive, when one realizes that the entire concept was dreamed up by a TV director trying to think of a way to get people down to planets without exceeding his budget.