[IP] TREK TECH
Delivered-To: dfarber+@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Date: Tue, 16 Mar 2004 00:14:32 -0800
From: Dewayne Hendricks <dewayne@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
TREK TECH
40 years since the Enterprise's inception, some of its science fiction
gadgets are part of everyday life
Benny Evangelista, Chronicle Staff Writer
Monday, March 15, 2004
URL:
<http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2004/03/15/BUGO35EG1T83.DTL >
In the 23rd century universe of "Star Trek,'' people talked to each other
using wireless personal communicators, had easy access to a vast database
of information and spent hours gazing at a big wall-mounted video screen.
On 21st century Earth, that future is already here.
People talk to each other on wireless communicators called cell phones.
They have instant access to infinite amounts of information on the
Internet. And they can spend hours staring at a big wall-mounted plasma or
liquid- crystal display TV watching reruns of "Star Trek." That is, if they
can afford one.
Indeed, 40 years after "Star Trek" creator Gene Roddenberry outlined his
vision for the groundbreaking science-fiction TV series, some of the once-
futuristic personal technology depicted in the voyages of the starship
Enterprise have become a reality.
Moreover, "Star Trek" has influenced a generation of engineers and
scientists, inspiring them to engage in the future they saw on TV and to
"make it so."
"When I designed the UI (user interface) for the Palm OS back in '93, my
first sketches were influenced by the UI of the Enterprise bridge panels,''
said Rob Haitani, product design architect for Palm-One Inc., the Milpitas
firm that makes the popular handheld personal computers.
"Years later, when we designed the first Treo (a combo phone and wireless
PDA), it had a form factor similar to the communicators in the original
series. It had a speakerphone mode so you could stand there and talk into
it like Capt. Kirk.''
The show that made Capt. James T. Kirk, Lt. Cmdr. Spock and Dr. Leonard
"Bones'' McCoy into pop-culture icons premiered on NBC on Sept. 8, 1966.
However, the genesis of the show dates to March 11, 1964, when
Roddenberry wrote a 16-page draft pilot for a show he told network
executives would be a "Wagon train to the stars,'' a nod to the many
Westerns that populated TV schedules at the time. Later that year, shooting
began on the first "Star Trek" pilot episode, "The Cage.''
In interviews and memoirs written before he died in 1991, Roddenberry
said NBC executives rejected the pilot as "too cerebral'' but were
impressed enough to green-light a second pilot.
Despite its intensely loyal following, "Star Trek" was canceled by NBC,
and the last first-run episode aired in June 1969, a little more than a
month before the Apollo 11 crew landed on the moon.
In syndication, "Star Trek" was propelled to a higher level of
popularity, and even cult status. It became one of the most lucrative
franchises in the annals of entertainment industry history, with an
animated series, ten theatrical movies and four spin-off TV series --
including the present "Enterprise'' on UPN.
Kirk to Enterprise
Whether it was because they were inspired by the show or because "Star
Trek" writers often based science fiction on science fact, today's popular
personal technology gadgets resemble or have similar functions to the
show's nonworking props.
The prime example is the communicators, the portable palm-size
transceivers with a flip-up cover-grid antenna that, according to "Star
Trek" "technical'' data, had been used "since at least the 2240s.''
When they were on missions off the starship, seeking out new life and new
civilizations, each crew member used the communicators to keep in voice
contact with their shipmates.
The communicators also transmitted a special identification signal to
allow the ship to gain a transporter lock on crew members, essential for
beaming them back to the ship.
Similarly, today's cell phones -- many with the flip-up cover -- do more
than just transmit voice signals. Newer models have global positioning
system satellite technology to let emergency workers lock on to a caller's
location. And some include GPS maps, helping owners to navigate unfamiliar
streets.
Some cell phones also respond to simple voice commands, although it's
still far from the level of sophistication depicted on the starship.
One other similarity: As with cell phones, Star Fleet communicators
didn't always work. Thanks to "ion storms" or other "subspace"
interference, "Star Trek" crew members had their own "dead zones" to deal with.
Also, new hands-free devices worn on the ear to connect wirelessly with
cell phones loosely resemble the "ear receiver'' used by the Enterprise's
communications officer, Lt. Uhura.
Time warp
To appreciate how far ahead of its time "Star Trek" was, consider that in
1964:
-- The main consumer communications device was a telephone tethered to
the wall by a cord that could not be unplugged except by a trained
technician from Ma Bell. Modular jacks and cordless phones were years from
being average household items, so the idea of a personal wireless
communications device was as alien as a Keeper on Talos IV.
-- Computers were large contraptions used by big corporations or the
government, not in the home.
-- Television broadcasters and makers of TVs were still in the early
stages of the transition from black-and-white to color, and many households
had only one TV. A typical "big screen'' TV of that era measured 23 inches
diagonally and was housed in a wooden box.
-- Audio entertainment was stored on vinyl records or spools of magnetic
reel-to-reel tape.
-- Although a Sony engineer proposed the idea of a videocassette recorder
that year, it would be a dozen years before the company introduced the
first Betamax home video recorder in the United States.
On "Star Trek," however, computers were ubiquitous, running everything
from life-support systems to long-range sensors. The voice-activated
computer gave any crew member instant access to a database containing the
recorded histories of Earthlings, Vulcans, Romulans and other known life forms.
"The flashing lights and teletype sounds when they were computing were
silly, but the concept that computers would be ubiquitous in life as tools
seemed inevitable to me, but was not a widely held belief in the 1970s,''
said "Star Trek" fan Steve Perlman, a Silicon Valley entrepreneur and
founder of WebTV.
Today, the Internet links personal computers in homes, schools and
businesses. And computer technology is incorporated into every modern
convenience, from automobiles to watches.
"Star Trek" writers "didn't succeed in predicting the Web, and they
didn't predict the networking of computers,'' said David Allen Batchelor,
an astrophysicist in the Science Communications Technology Branch at NASA
Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md.
But "Star Trek" "had a huge multimedia library, accessible like the Web
is now,'' Batchelor said. A lifelong "Star Trek" fan, Batchelor wrote a
paper called "The Science of Star Trek,'' posted on the NASA Goddard site,
that examines "Star Trek" technology that is already available, possible,
unlikely or impossible.
There are no smart androids, such as "Norman'' in the episode "I, Mudd.''
But Batchelor noted there is a form of artificial intelligence not seen
when that episode aired in 1967 that is taken for granted today -- phone
answering systems.
"This is rather primitive usually, but there are some good systems, like
the one that I use to call the Washington Post and suspend delivery at my
home while I'm away,'' Batchelor said. "It's pleasant to use and performs
its task automatically.''
Onscreen
"Star Trek" crews never wasted their star dates watching TV, but they
were surrounded by electronic video screens called viewers, either on
tabletops or affixed to workstations. The main viewer on the bridge was a
wall- size screen.
In the first pilot, Mr. Spock used a viewer in a meeting room to display
what resembled a primitive PowerPoint presentation to the ship's executive
officers.
In the past two years, makers of consumer electronics and computers have
been pushing similar-looking devices: large-screen flat-panel plasma and
LCD TV monitors that can be hung on a wall.
Warp factor MP3
On "Star Trek," the crew recorded audio and video messages on square,
palm-size cartridges that were played back with a computer. Today, small,
square flash-memory cards are used to store digital photos, MP3s and short
videos. Disk drives, CDs and DVDs also store multimedia files.
"In the '60s, it was inconceivable that you would have a miniature disk
drive, let alone nonviolable semiconductor memory in a plastic square,''
said Perlman in an e-mail.
In a 2002 book, "Star Trek: I'm Working on That,'' actor William Shatner,
who played Capt. Kirk, examined technologies and inventors inspired by the
show. He also commented on the stunning pace of technological advancement
during the "Star Trek" era.
"We're like the driver behind the wheel of a car that's suddenly
accelerated from zero to 150 miles an hour in the space of a few seconds.
Not only that, but we're not sure how to operate the damn thing,'' Shatner
wrote.
"I suspect that one of the purposes of science fiction is to let us play
out our nightmares and our dreams in the theater of the future before we
turn them into reality.''
----------------------------------------------------
Techies who are Trekkies
Steve Perlman, WebTV founder
Episodes like "The Menagerie" contemplated technology that could create
an artificial reality. This was hugely inpiring to me, and it's one of the
things that drove me into exploring computer graphics, motion capture,
audio perception. And a lot of this work made its way into the color Mac. I
was a big fan. .
Steve Wozniak, Apple co-founder
I went to Star Trek conventions. During my Apple design days I'd come
home to my apartment, from work at nearby HP, to watch Star Trek (reruns)
and then head back to HP to work late ?.
Rob Haitani, PalmOne designer
I have to say I was most inspired by the vision of racial equality.
Remember in those days, Japanese people were portrayed on TV as
buck-toothed clowns with thick glasses. But on Star Trek, there were Asian
and African American bridge officers, and starships with Japanese names.
Chronicle staff writer Matthew Yi contributed to this story.E-mail Benny
Evangelista at bevangelista@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Archives at: <http://Wireless.Com/Dewayne-Net>
Weblog at: <http://weblog.warpspeed.com>
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