10 Times Star Trek Predicted The Future
9. Communications And Transponders
One of the most enduring images from Star Trek remains the communicators that either sit in the palm of Captain Kirk's hand, or adorned the chest of Captain Picard's uniform. While the idea for mobile technology itself had been around before the inception of Star Trek, the series helped to inspire re-definitions of what these devices could do.
In June of 2016, The Wand Company released a clamshell communicator that would pair, via Blue-Tooth, with a mobile phone up to 5 metres away. This would then allow the user to use the communicator in much the same way that Kirk would have done so in the series. Fametek then release a TNG communicator later that year with much of the same functionalities.
Transponders have been a part of Star Trek since the beginning - allowing the ship to locate and rescue a stranded crewman if the need arose. With GPS and Geo-targeting, this too has become something of a reality in modern life. Google Maps/Apple Maps will now allow the user to pinpoint their location to within a metre or so, using satelite technology - reminiscent of Starfleet's scanning tech.