OT: Sci-fi (was RE: Ultra-portable terminals)

[John Esak]

> There was a show on the Discovery Channel a few months ago called
> "How William Shatner changed the world", and was basically how
> things from Star Trek ended up inspiring some of the people who
> are responsible for much of today's technology.  (Like the guy
> who is credited with inventing the cell phone, who got the idea
> from the Star Trek communicators.)
>
> --
> KenBrody at BestWeb dot net        spamtrap: <g8ymh8uf001 at sneakemail.com>

How funny. Do you remember the filePro Conference "keynote" I did some time
back where I used clips from the Gary 7 episode (Destination Earth??). I
showed how the girl was so freaked out by the fact that the typewriter was
automatically typing everything she said. My comment was to the effect that
this show aired in 1967, and it was only 30 years since then and we had
Naturally Speaking working better than that silly typewriter... and Star
Trek of that period was supposedly in the 22nd (or was it 23d century.  The
geometric development of technology had caused a roughly 10 to 1 time
dilation  with regard to our perception of the future. What will the next 30
years bring. 100 to 1? ... assuming we don't blow ourselves up before we get
there.

John