Real life tech inspired by Star Trek

In the process of exploring the final frontier, the crew of Star Trek made use of technology born of the creator’s imagination. But much of that technology has been realized - at least to some extent - by the year 2019. 

Communicators

Should you still have a flip-style phone in your possession, like I do, you have a piece of tech straight out of Star Trek. In fact, TrekMovie.com suggests "the modern flip-style mobile phone was inspired by the communicators from the original Star Trek.” As Oscar Wilde famously quipped, “Life imitates art.” This has proven true for our cell phones.

So back when Paramount was working on releasing its 2009 Star Trek movie, it partnered with Nokia and Verizon for a Star Trek-themed promotional campaign.

Europeans even had the opportunity to purchase a special Star Trek version of the Nokia 5800 (non-flip) cell phone, which threw in “some Star Trek-themed content.”  

There must have been some really die-hard fans of the original series at Nokia. Back in 2008, they built 14 prototypes of a cell phone that looked exactly like the communicators used by Captain Kirk and his crew with the functionality of the Nokia N76 flip phone.  

The universal translator

The fleet on Star Trek often has to communicate with aliens whose native language is not English, and once in a while, you do get to hear Klingon or another alien language. But most of the time, everyone is speaking in English. How does that work?

The Doctor Who series explains the same phenomenon by saying the Tardis automatically translates everything expressed by both humans and aliens; Star Trek attributes it to something much smaller known as the universal translator.

If you have any questions at all about how its function and evolution has changed throughout the different manifestations of the series, you can likely find it on the Memory Alpha site. It cites the original series’ creator, Gene Roddenberry who wrote the following:

“We establish a ‘telecommunicator’ device early in the series, little more complicated than a small transistor radio carried in a pocket. A simple ‘two-way scrambler;’ it appears to be converting all spoken language into English."

Read more in 

5 Star Trek Technologies: When Real Life Imitates Science Fiction

Holographic Imaging Aids Surgeons

It looks like something out of a science fiction film: a human heart floating in mid-air in such a way that a doctor can walk around it and see it in action from all sides. This technology has the potential to completely revolutionize the way surgeons get to see inside their patients. Already tested in pilot programs, the technology should start appearing in medical care facilities in 2016.

Fans of the television show Grey's Anatomy got to see a holographic clip of the technology in an episode that aired this past spring. In We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together, Burke arranges for Cristina to go to Zurich where she gets to see a hologram of the heart they are to operate on. In reality, the work on the technology behind the holography was performed in Israel by RealView Imaging.

Read more in 

Holographic Images for Healthcare

Keeping your identity

Clones, robots, alien shapeshifters, or disembodied consciousness take over people's identities in shows such as Star Trek and Doctor Who. They can then take over the lives of the people they've duplicated, particularly when they have access to their memories. How can anyone defend himself when he can't tell friend from foe?

In real life, most of us don't fear having someone else show up in person claiming to be us. But we are concerned about identity theft. Our digital world makes it all too easy for the bad guys to hack into personal information posted online, as well as financial information that we can think is secure. The cost of identity theft can be huge when hackers get access to our credit cards, debit cards, and bank accounts.

Read more in Your Personal Online Guardian

Star Trek and the final frontier of currency

Yes, I did get paid to write about Star Trek, at least in terms of envisioning money in the future in works of science fiction. I also mention Star Wars and The Handmaid's Tale.

 Part of the geek appeal for Bitcoin users is that it is a real-life example of a concept often featured in science fiction or sci-fi-oriented computer games: an advanced, universally accepted form of currency.

Universally accepted forms of payments become essential in a society in which space travel enables humans – and other sentient beings – to hop from planet to planet inhabited by civilizations of all kinds. Read more in Is Bitcoin science fiction come to life?