The original "Star Trek" series, which aired form 1966 - 1969, portrayed a vision of the future filled with marvelous technologies: warp drives, phasers, tricorders and of course, the communicator.
The communicator may have been the most accurate prediction of all, a small handheld communication device.
While the idea of such a thing was astounding in 1966, today even my grandmother has a cell phone.
The original communicator had three buttons and two knobs, while our phones today have at least the standard 12-key keypad and then a few extras for menu navigation, games or quick access to functions. The communicator had a small spinning moiré patter for a display, a far cry from the dazzling full-color displays of today.
With our displays we are able to navigate menus on-screen, send text messages and even view pictures and movies.
The communicator also had the disadvantage of always being on speaker-phone mode all the time. Today that is an option, but most people like to keep one side of their conversations private.
The flip-up grid antenna of the original communicator was a nice touch, but our antenna tech has gotten them so small that in many cases they are wholly integrated with the body of the phone.
So yeah, we've come a long way past the communicator.
And now it's time to take a step back.
Beginning on the Sept. 30, in celebration of the 40th anniversary of Star Trek, Viacom (which owns Paramount, which owns "Star Trek") will be releasing a communicator replica phone through Sona Mobile.
The device is going to look like an old school Trek communicator, except it'll be a bit smaller, (and I bet it has a real screen).
It'll have the features that every Trekkie will need, such as instant access to Trek message boards, an interactive game called Fleetwars, and the ability to download episodes of "Star Trek" in streaming video format.
So the next Trek convention you go to (you do go to the conventions right?) you and all the other real Trekkies can show off your devotion to the series with your very own working communicator.
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