Things That Star Trek Inspired..
5. Mobile Phone
Possibly the most obvious gift from Star Trek to civilisation was the communicator device. The thing is, that the inclusion of the communicator is probably quite obvious, and was a science fiction staple already by the 1960s. After all, in the Original Series it is effectively just a walkie talkie, wasn't it? That coupled with Gene Roddenberry's military series during the Second World War in the US Air Corps means that he certainly used radios for communicating between teams. So it's entirely probable that Star Trek has simply been given the credit here for something that would have happened anyway. After all, military technology has been making it's way to civilian use for years a similar example is the microwave which was developed from radar technology and had no science fiction involvement in the invention at all. But regardless of the possibilities for developing the technology without the help of Star Trek, it can certainly be said that the series sped up the development process. I can't think of two devices other than mobile phones and computers that have so rapidly changed over the last four decades to the extent that they are effectively starting to become interchangeable terms when you start to have mini tablets that can also make phone calls. As for how much of an inspiration Star Trek actually was in the development of the mobile phone it was directly cited by Dr. Martin Cooper, PhD, formerly of Motorola and nicknamed "the father of the cellphone". Cooper directly conceived the first hand held phone and brought it to market. He said that he was inspired by Captain Kirk using a communicator on The Original Series. So there you have it, if anyone can state categorically that Star Trek influenced the development of this technology, surely the original inventor must be it.