working star trek stuff

[pnvboy]

I hope this is the right place for this...
Been thinking about it on and off for years - making working, useful trek stuff. I'm just a novice, to say the least, but I was thinking about the following..
1. main computer: LCARS interface and stuff
2. padd
3. tricorders - science and medical
4. communicator
5. universal translator
6. phaser (no, not like the ones on screen that can vaporize people -
that's illegal, by the way. Something more like a laser taser gun (they're called electro lasers).

I'm thinking about using Linux - it's open source and free. There are loads of free apps available, it's used in embedded projects, and there are a lot of resources online available.

Anyone have any ideas, comments? (be nice )

 

[Luckyflux]

Some stuff appears to be easier to make than others. There is already an LCARS interface for computers. A user on this site has a big LCARS thing.

A PADD is just like a Palm Pilot. It displays data. The operating system on a PADD seems to be tied into the main computer to get data and run commands such as analyze or search for data.

Tricorder would be tough. You need a hand held sensor that can detect and analyze pretty much anything. I don't think we have any technology that is up to that level yet.

Universal Translator, well is there a translator that can translate all Earth languages? Like if I speak Japanese to you, would you hear my voice speaking English? That seems pretty difficult, but not out of the question. Plus you'd have to account for languages you never heard before. That wouldbe tough. Like my girlfiriend is Chinese. While I cannot understand the words that are coming out of her mouth, I can understand alittle of what she is talking about through her vocal reflections and her body language. With alittle intuition I can generally come close to what she is talking about. But without those hints, I wouldn't be able to understand anything.

A communicator would be pretty easy. You would just need to shrink the technology inside and get better battery life. Those technological improvements are becoming a reality, we just don't have a time frame yet.

Same with lasers/phasers too. There is just no way to store that much energy to produce a "beam" to do any kind of damage. Batteries are too big, too unreliable and too undercharged to do anything like that just yet. But that is something that will be overcome within 10 years.

I think your best bet to start with battery life. If you can find a way to make a long lasting battery, that can instantly recharge (this instant recharge capability is very close to reality), and hold alot of power, you might be onto a few breakthroughs.

Good luck my friend. The world needs imaginative inventors, so get out there and do your thang!

 

[MadMan1701A]

Some stuff appears to be easier to make than others. There is already an LCARS interface for computers. A user on this site has a big LCARS thing.

A PADD is just like a Palm Pilot. It displays data. The operating system on a PADD seems to be tied into the main computer to get data and run commands such as analyze or search for data.

Tricorder would be tough. You need a hand held sensor that can detect and analyze pretty much anything. I don't think we have any technology that is up to that level yet.

Universal Translator, well is there a translator that can translate all Earth languages? Like if I speak Japanese to you, would you hear my voice speaking English? That seems pretty difficult, but not out of the question. Plus you'd have to account for languages you never heard before. That wouldbe tough. Like my girlfiriend is Chinese. While I cannot understand the words that are coming out of her mouth, I can understand alittle of what she is talking about through her vocal reflections and her body language. With alittle intuition I can generally come close to what she is talking about. But without those hints, I wouldn't be able to understand anything.

A communicator would be pretty easy. You would just need to shrink the technology inside and get better battery life. Those technological improvements are becoming a reality, we just don't have a time frame yet.

Same with lasers/phasers too. There is just no way to store that much energy to produce a "beam" to do any kind of damage. Batteries are too big, too unreliable and too undercharged to do anything like that just yet. But that is something that will be overcome within 10 years.

I think your best bet to start with battery life. If you can find a way to make a long lasting battery, that can instantly recharge (this instant recharge capability is very close to reality), and hold alot of power, you might be onto a few breakthroughs.

Good luck my friend. The world needs imaginative inventors, so get out there and do your thang!

I may have misunderstood, but I think he means he wants the stuff to LOOK like it works, not actually work.

Am I right?

 

[KGB]

I may have misunderstood, but I think he means he wants the stuff to LOOK like it works, not actually work.

Am I right?

Been thinking about it on and off for years - making working, useful trek stuff.

***

 

[Luckyflux]

Hrrrmmmmm. I thought that is what I was talking about. I was giving suggestions on what would be required to build that kind of stuff. At least I thought that was what I was going for....did I have a flashback and not know it?

He wants a PADD. Just modify a palm pilot and you got a PADD right there.

We wanted to make a working communicator just like the ones on TV. Well he will need to shrink certain current technology to do that right?

Sorry if I was wrong there, sometimes I just get carried responding to a post and I just babble on and on...

 

[pnvboy]

Actually, I was talking about working stuff..
For example, the phaser - I was thinking along the lines of a 'laser tazer gun' - or what is called an elctro laser. If you do a web search on things like 'directed energy weapon,' 'elctroshock weapon,' and 'electro laser' you come upon some interesting articles. In fact, I found some interesting stuff in other places - a medical article that talked about using a cell phone chip to generate a large energy field in a small ring, another article on quantum dot ( or quantum well) lasers that are 10x stronger than other lasers because they pull the electrons from the inner sheels ( as compared to the outer shell) and that emitted x-ray waves ( which are a higher energy wave as compared to light waves.

I've seen some stuff for LCARS - but the ones for Linux ( at least the ones I've found ) seem to be lacking. They are more like animations, screen savers or what have you. I,m thinking along the lines of an LCARS desktop. There have been posts I've seen - can't remember where - but are along the lines of what I want to do. But there is so much more - voice command, speech synthesis, and so on.

Again, found some interesting stuff - look at this:
http://www.curiousinventor.com/projects/Tricorder
or this:
http://www.marketingpilgrim.com/2007/12/google-looking-at-detection-technology.html
Likewise, you could do searches such as 'working tricorder' or 'real tricorder' and get some cool results.

I'm thinking: start with a SBC (single board computer) or such, add camera, gps, compass,... then sensors
The 'computer part' is the main thing. For the science tricorder, load up all sorts of stuff on plants, animals, geology, chemistry,...the list goes on.
Medical tricorder; there is a site called webmd - or something like that - as well as books where you 'input' symptoms, it tells you possible conditions and treatments. Also, what about pills/drugs. Seems to me there must be a place where companies (pharmacies, webmd, and so on) get this stuff. I can't see each of them having people input stuff on a regular basis. Anyway, can we get the info? can we load it on the tricorder (and main computer) etc,etc...

universal translator - there was a program I seen about a month ago - Beyond Tomorrow, I think: in one of the segments the host was given an iphone with a translator app on it. He walks down the street and stops a chinese gal and asks for directions. He pushes a button on the iphone and it speaks chinese ( a nice sounding voice - not mechanical or digital). The girl responds in chinese. He pushes a button and the phone speaks the english translation. He then does the same for a hispanic man.

There was a commercial on TV for this software called Dragon. A person would have this headset on and speak and the computer would write out ( or act on a command).

Thanks - found LCARS 24 and JoeRalat both doing LCARS stuff - unfortunately, they use windows (don't anyone 'round here like linux???) but still very useful! Thank you

 

[Jadzia]

* moderation note: please don't make five posts in a row, or more than two actually. I'm merged them this time. Use your edit button in future.

 

[Alpha_Geek]

1. LCARS: While some have made successful front ends and applications with an LCARS look, computer interfaces will most certainly take a different direction than this. LCARS was designed to look futuristic on a TV screen, and it does.

2. PADD: My phone already does this. I've got 4 GB of storage for e-books, spreadsheets, some Good Eats, Firefly and Brisco County Jr. episodes, and room to spare!

3. Tricorder: Major breakthroughs in remote sensing technology would be needed.

4. Communicator: Possible to some degree now. Cell phone tech doesn't count since it depends on a huge network of towers. However if your were able to build a big enough spaceship to hold 400+ people, it could also hold some pretty sensitive recieving equipment to get low power signals from a planet surface.

5. Universal Translator: Major developments in speech recognition and syntax parsing required. While the Microsoft speech regognition engine currently has an advertised 95% accuracy, it's in the case of analyzing speech input for a limited number of commands or instructions. Free speech recognition, and then translation with a high degree of accuracy in meaning, idiom, and syntax are a good ways off.

6. Phaser: I'm pretty doubtful on this one. Frakkin' ray guns would be cool though.

 

[sojourner]

To add to above:

1. Yea, we had a thread about this some months ago over in trek tech. It boiled down to LCARS looking great on screen but not being a very good real world design.

2. Kindle, Nook, any modern smart phone. This one is done.

3. I question the need for this device in the near future. How many alien planets are we going to be landing on anytime soon? Scientists already have job specific tools that they use. The general tricorder is a device looking for a need. A medical tricorder might be useful though.

4. Satellite phones can communicate with LOE so yea, this technology is almost there. And sat phones are coming down in size as well. The latest one I used (2 years ago) was not much bigger than a mid 90's celphone.

5. nothing to add.

6. There real limiting factor on hand held energy weapons is battery technology. We cannot at this time store the vast amount of energy required in a form factor anywhere near this small. Heck, we can barely store enough energy in the huge batteries used in cars to make hybrids viable. Full electric cars are still borderline.

 

[Alpha_Geek]

Yeah, sat phones are closer than cellular or PCS. They're still more akin to cell phone tech since they depend on a cloud of low orbit satellites instead of getting all the way to the Clark belt.

Both are still dependant on a ground based switching system, but when larger oribtal platforms become available, this may change.

 

[pnvboy]

found some interesting stuff --- electro laser! basically a laser tazer gun. companies working on it. also found article on quantum dot ( or quantum well) lasers - 10x more power and can do other types of waves ( not just light). so who knows???
a cricket pahser that could knock a person out - cooooooooooooooooooooool!!!

 

[Brandonv]

5. universal translator

Have a look at this video: Ray Kurzweil demoes voice translation system