About a year ago I talked about how silly some of the “tech” on the old Star Trek series seems today. But the funny things is how accurate the show was about predicting other technology.
I think we all know what a forerunner the classic series was for things such as cell phones and computer disks, and those ear pieces they wore do bare a startling resemblance to current bluetooth earbuds, but The Next Generation also has it’s share of devices which were “futuristic” when the show aired, but today we all enjoy. I wanted to focus on five things we literally use today. Not items which are theory or “being developed”, not that those aren’t valid examples.
GPS
Yeah this one may not be the first to come to people’s minds but it’s valid. With the sensors the crew could track crew members on a mission, and could figure out how far a planet or other vessel was with pinpoint accuracy. Thanks to the Global Positioning System we use today we can also keep track of people in real time, and finding out how long it will take to get from here to there is no problem at all.
Virtual Reality
Ok this is cheating a little, but not really. While it’s true that we don’t have holodeck’s just yet, we do have VR. And with that we can do a lot of things the crew of the Enterprise could n a holodeck. We can immerse ourselves fully into a virtual environment and interact with it in some cases.
Laptop’s
This one kills me! Picard was always seen using his laptop in his ready room. That must have seemed so dang futuristic back then. And now they are so common, we almost don’t even think about them anymore.
Ipad
Speaking of laptop’s this one is even crazier! The crew often used pads which would bring up information from the computer, just provided in a more convenient format so it can be transported. I guess this was a logical change from TOS where they still literally signed things (it was always stupid the way yeoman’s would walk around with reports for Kirk to sign). Of course these pads they used bare an uncanny resemblance to Ipad’s, phones, and other similar products we have today.
Alexa (Echo)
Even in the 60’s show the idea of a computer that would just work on command seemed laughable. They often had to turn them before telling them what they wanted it to do. In TNG, all you had to do was talk to the computer and ask it whatever you wanted. Whether it be to sound the red alert, locate a missing crewman, or just ask what the heck time it was. It’s a lot like thew way the echo devices we have today operate. In fact, Amazon added a feature so that rather than call “ALEXA” when you wanted to ask it something, you could ask “COMPUTER” just the way did on TNG!
It does make you wonder what the future will look like. It’s just fascinating how technology has changed, and these were just five examples! Plenty others out there and if you think I missed one that should have been mentioned comment and let me know.
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