10 Ways Star Trek Changed People's Lives
7. The iPod
Whilst Star Trek: The Next Generation predicted the iPad, it also suggested we'd need separate pads per departmental report! So it didn't invent the iPad, but it did inspire the creation of the iPod - remember those? Former Apple developer Steve Perlman was a huge fan of TNG, and was influenced by the 1991 episode A Matter of Time.
One scene portrays Data listening to multiple pieces of classical music simultaneously, creating the cacophony that greets visitors to his quarters. It was in this comical, throwaway scene that Perlman saw the future of home entertainment. In the early 1990s it still took incredible processing power and physical space to process just one single! Together with his team, he was inspired to create the QuickTime codec. This new software enabled the user to compress and store multiple pieces of music and video.
It was this innovation that paved the way for mp3s, the iPod and many more handheld multimedia devices. Aptly enough, A Matter of Time's climax finds Rasmussen, a 22nd century time traveller, attempt to kidnap Data for his superior technology!