Treknology in real life?

Hi! My fiancee and I were at the store the other day, when I pulled out my Ipac to check the shopping list. A passer-by's comment about trekkies got me joking and playing around with the little device like it was a tricorder got me thinking... Why couldn't it be? There exist GPS and WiFi attachments for pocket PCs, and I saw a "Real Life Tricorder" that worked as an environmental sensor advertized on one of QVC's Star Trek merchendising shows, so why shouldn't portable sensory type stuff be out of the question? Has anyone besides myself thought about rigging up their PDA/pocket PC like this?

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I'd like a Tricorder that can detect the presence of any single females who don't think that having roleplay as a hobby or liking SF and Rock is sad.

But as Scotty says:

"Sorry Admiral, we can't even do that in the 23rd Century."

Well, I found mine through the internet by being a regular in the Pogo spades rooms... and since I've recently moved to Washington State to be with her, something must have worked. :)

Which reminds me- I need to change my location info on here.

Now the only problem is finding gaming group around here...

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Originally posted by JonA
I'd like a Tricorder that can detect the presence of any single females who don't think that having roleplay as a hobby or liking SF and Rock is sad.

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Hey, maybe this was what Kirk's tricorder was programmed to detect after all ;). This would explain quite a lot... :D
Best of luck to you anyway :). I manged to find such a rare bird on the Internet, on a matchmaking site, so they must exist after all.... :p

And now back on topic : I don't know about tricorders, but PADDs seem to be very close, if not at hand right now. After all, PDAs and mobiles are becoming more and more powerful, and I'm waiting for the time where they'll combine both of them in one single device. We could even end up soon with portable video-communicators (like they had in the Space 1999 series - only a lot smaller, of course ;)).
BTW, isn't the Army equipped with such heat detectors or devices like that that can detect heat sources at a distance, or was it a fiction I read ?

I don't know about the Army, but on USS Milwaukee as early as '90, we had a portable thermal imager that was designed to help our firefighters detect hot spots in a smoke-filled engine room. I think the technology has abeen around since the mid-80s.

It was about the size of a large radar gun back then. I know that more recent thermal imagers are about the size of a small digital camcorder, and are leaps ahead in resolution and sensitivity.

Thermal imaging is a capability of standard issue NVGs, which are smaller than most binoculars. I've been using them on night flights in formation with other C-130s, and you can clearly see the engines get hotter at full throttle on a plane 4000 feet away. And it's amazing how many more stars you can see through NVGs.

Hey, you know what the aircraft commander says on a covert night mission when we put on NVGs and turn out the lights? "We're cloaked." :D

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Originally posted by Liz Not Beth
Hmmm... Shegeeks hang out online?! Who would have thought! :D

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You don't count in my endless search for a "shegeek". Mores the pity.

:D