Star Trek
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Star Trek Online devlogs explore strange new world-building techniques
If you've been following Star Trek Online, then you know we get the sweetest little tastes of information in Perpetual's monthly devlogs. This month's devlog is about game art -- specifically, putting together different building-block pieces of it to form a variety of locales. This is appropriately demonstrated with pieces of a Vulcan town -- "Infinite Diversity in Infinite Combinations," get it?While that's (Vulcan voice) fascinating, the highlights of the devlog are arguably the little bits of concept art. Most if it is Vulcan stuff, but devlogger Mike Stemmle did toss in the above-pictured TOS Doomsday Machine. If you're a real Trekkie, that bit alone should make the wait unbearable. We're trying our best to be patient and to not let Perpetual's Gods & Heroes self-destruction get to us. To quote Spock, "you must have faith that the universe will unfold as it should."[Via Warcry]
Flickr Find: Star Trek etched MacBooks and iPods
If the fact that I write for an Apple related blog isn't enough to prove that I am a gigantic nerd, I also happen to like Star Trek. That's why I am always thrilled when I can write about both Apple products and Star Trek in the same post. Today's opportunity comes to TUAW via etchstar.com's Flickrstream. You might be aware that there is a small, but growing, industry that, using lasers, will etch various designs onto your MacBook, iPod, or iPhone. etchstar is the latest business to offer this service (it looks like they are launching on November 1st).etchstar's Flickrstream is chock-a-block with Apple products decorated with a number of Star Trek themed designs, amongst other things. There's a Starfleet Command MacBook Pro, an Enterprise MacBook (seen above), an Enterprise A iPod, a Star Trek logo iPod, a Klingon Empire iPod, and a very cool nano or two.I wonder how much it would cost to get the Enterprise on my iPhone. How sweet would that be?[via MAKE]Update: My geek cred is in question! I wrongly identified the Enterprise above as the Enterprise A. Clearly, it is just the plain old Enterprise (from the Original Series). I blame the Borg for the mistake.
Why Gods & Heroes: Rome Rising and not Star Trek Online?
I'm still lamenting a loss, Gods & Heroes: Rome Rising sacked in the Forum. It was right there, so close to the finish line, it wasn't perfect but it could've shipped. Other MMOGS have shipped in such states to go on and perhaps perform well enough to linger around and improve down the line. Perpetual Entertainment weighed the costs and decided that all their resources would be better spent on Stark Trek Online and their Publishing Platform, one of them had to go, there was no way around it unless there was a hidden cache of Roman gold buried outside their offices and a super secret development team stashed away. I admire the decision, when it was all said and done Gods & Heroes wasn't up to Perpetual's standards and they had the moxie to cancel it -- a project years in the making halted. That takes guts, but why not place Star Trek Online on indefinite hold and delay its development for a year or two instead and finish Gods & Heroes? Before the Trekkies bust out their homemade laser-pointer phasers, let me tip you all off on a little something. MMOGS based off a movie, book, music video, cereal box, or whatever fancy pants intellectual property are extremely difficult to pull-off. The past has already proven that these superstar franchises when converted into a MMOG don't perform as expected and usually disappoint the majority fanbase. The only exception to this rule is Lord of the Rings Online, but even so the subscriptions speak for themselves -- it's doing alright, but is Lord of the Rings Online a runaway success? I don't think so, otherwise the server crews would rapidly deploy brand spankin' new servers because they can't keep the players off them ala WoW's first year. I like the content in Lord of the Rings Online, and if you love it that's great, because in the grand scheme of things that's all that matters. The main reason why developing a MMOG based off a license as prominent and detailed as Star Trek is that it's impossible to meet all the diehard fanbois and fangrrls expectations. If it doesn't live up to the hype they will revolt on a whim if the transition to the online world doesn't match up to the original canon, stories, novels, what makes up the wondrous Star Trek Universe. When you add in all the other factors that make a MMOG world and mix it up sometimes it just doesn't work. Well, here's to hoping they can pull it off or the loss of Gods & Heroes: Rome Rising will be all for naught and that would be the true shame. It's going to be a long wait to find out.
Theaters to offer sneak peak of Star Trek HD DVD
All right, trekkies, time to bust your best Star Trek costume out of the mothballs! Not for Halloween, you Talosian smacktard, but for the big screen showing of the two-part classic Star Trek episode, "The Menagerie." On November 20th 13th, a week before the release of the DVD/HD DVD combo boxed set of "Star Trek: The Original Series Season 1", the episode will be shown in all its HD glory at 300 theaters nationwide. True fans demand more, though, so the theaters will also be showing a new introduction by Eugene Roddenberry and a "behind the scenes" feature. Follow the link for details on where you can catch 40-foot Kirk and how many bones it'll cost you.
Adgadget: Fantasy fembots market male products
Ariel Waldman contributes Adgadget, a column about the intersection of advertising and technology.Technologically better equipped than booth babes, fantasy fembots seem to be popping up everywhere in ad campaigns these days. Alcohol seems to be popular with the fembots -- they're employed in ads from both Heineken and Svedka -- but Philips is utilizing them in a campaign for an electric razor as well. It's pretty easy to be creeped out by the influx of ready-to-serve robots -- and not just because these fembots could be the beginnings of the Singularity in disguise. (C'mon, what more suitable "smarter-than-human brain-computer-interface" would be better to take over the human race than one that offered kegs and clean shaves as a "gift from the Greeks"? And who better to be behind the downfall of society than advertisers?) Misogynist undertones run rampant throughout all the ads, so it's no shock that feminine cyborgs are used exclusively in advertising targeting young males -- they tap right into stock fantasies of complete feminine subservience.
Buy Star Trek: TOS HD DVD and a Toshiba HD DVD player, get an uber-rare Phaser remote
If you somehow managed to hold off on picking up a Toshiba HD DVD player along with eight free titles, and you eat, sleep, and breathe Star Trek, we've got a feeling your resistance is futile. In an admittedly interesting promotional move, Toshiba has teamed with CBS to offer those who purchase Star Trek: The Original Series HD DVD box set and any Toshiba HD DVD player a "limited edition Star Trek Phaser remote" that will operate Tosh's HD DVD players. Regrettably, there's no mention as to how many of these things will actually be handed out, but if you're even remotely (ahem) interested, we'd be on the ball as soon as the set lands.
Widget Watch: Warp Speed Calculator
The Warp Speed Calculator widget isn't useful at all, unless you happen to be a captain of a Starfleet vessel, but I'm OK with that. As you might expect this simple widget calculates how fast, in km/s, a particular Warp Factor is (from Star Trek: The Next Generation). I can also calculate how long it'll take you to travel distances based on your Warp Factor.Who doesn't need to know this stuff from time to time?
Star Trek: The Original Series S1 HD DVD boxed set hits November 20
CBS and Paramount have lived up to their promise of more details on the Star Trek:The Original Series Season 1 HD DVD/DVD combo boxed set at Comic-Con, announcing the 10 disc set will debut November 20th. As seen in the HD broadcasts, the visuals have been updated, along with remastered audio with a Dolby TrueHD soundtrack. HD DVD exclusive special features include picture-in-picture video commentaries, an interactive tour of Enterprise, a documentary on the remastering process, rare home videos and additional information on seven of the episodes. All that Star Trek goodness that comes packaged in a "futuristic, clear case" with an SRP of $217.99, and still no word of a Blu-ray release.[Thanks, Cameron]
New details emerge on Star Trek: TOS HD DVD
We know, the wait is most definitely not enjoyable, but here's a few more details to hopefully tide you over until Star Trek: The Original Series is finally launched on HD DVD. Reportedly, the disc will feature "never-before-seen footage exclusive to the next-gen edition," including behind the scenes 8-millimeter footage taken during the original production of the show. Additionally, it's being hinted that the studio is planning to give Comic-Con attendees a "first peek" at the long-awaited release on July 26 at a special event, and while there's still no word on this title making its way to Blu-ray, we'd be fairly surprised if it didn't make the jump in due time.
Australian physicists develop teleportation scheme for atoms
Although the idea of teleporting individuals from one place to another in order to sidestep the headache of rush hour traffic has been around for quite some time, a team of Australian physicists are busy making it work (on a smaller scale, of course). Granted, they don't fully expect their teleportation scheme to be used on humans in the near future, but there's always hope, right? Anyway, the team has developed a so-called "simple way to transport atoms," which involves bringing the atoms to almost absolute zero, beaming them with two lasers, and using fiber optics to transport them to any other place at the speed of light where they "enter a second condensate" and reconstruct. We'll keep you posted on when human trialing (hopefully) begins.
Mii Spotlight: Beam Mii Up edition
Mii Spotlight -- the final column (of the week.) These are the Web voyages of the blog Wii Fanboy. Its continuing mission: to explore strange new fansites. To seek out new Miis and new Mii collections. To boldly post no Mii that has been posted before.
Star Trek Voyager back in iTunes
What is it with Star Trek and iTunes? Last week, Voyager was unceremoniously beamed out of the US store. Today, it's back with a revised price of $28.99US for the 15-episodes of Season one [iTunes link].This isn't the first time we've seen Trek disappear from the ITS, only to reappear a short time later. There's only one explanation, of course: a temporal anomaly. They're always experiencing temporal anomalies.Thanks, Nate!
Voyager: Now you see it, now you don't
What is it with the iTunes Store and Star Trek? I blogged a few days ago that the first season of Star Trek Voyager was available for purchase via the iTunes Store. We then got a report that the episodes were 'abridged,' though I can't verify that for myself. Now, Voyager is no where to be seen on the iTunes Store. Keep in mind this isn't the first time Star Trek has disappeared from iTunes, only to warp back onto it at a later date.Here's hoping Capt. Janeway can get her crew and ship out of whatever calamity has made them go missing.
Make it so: virtual reality Enterprise hits Canada
The 1,500 Trek-obssesed citizens of Vulcan, Alberta are spicing up their annual Galaxyfest this year with the launch of the "Vulcan Space Adventure," an immersive VR game that takes place inside a recreation of the Enterprise. The CA$250,000 game, built by VR firm GestureTek, allows up to three players cast as Starfleet trainees to simulataneously interact with a virtual environment created by multple cameras and holographic screens. After being led into the simulation chamber -- built to look like the bridge of the Enterprise -- by "Captain Krok," visitors take orders from Starfleet Command and then use GestureTek's "point-and-click" VR system to complete their mission. The system, which doesn't require the player to wear any cumbersome VR gear, is one of only two GestureTek installations in Canada. We just hope the game doesn't get too real: what happened to that poor redshirt in these photos? A couple more after the jump...
Star Trek-style deflector shield to fend off harmful radiation
When you've got folks dreaming up such things as a $2.5 trillion "space sunshade," we reckon a Star Trek-style deflector shield isn't too far-fetched. Apparently, a team of British scientists are looking into the possibility of crafting such a device in order to " protect astronauts from radiation" when they venture beyond the Earth's protective magnetic envelope, or "magnetosphere." Reportedly, the team is hoping to "to mimic the magnetic field which protects the Earth" and deploy the shields "around spacecraft and on the surfaces of planets to deflect harmful energetic particles." As nation's begin to revive plans of space exploration, the homegrown shield should look mighty attractive at the Royal Astronomical Society's National Astronomy Meeting, but details concerning a proposed launch date, and moreover, the presumably lofty pricetag, have yet to emerge.[Via Slashdot]
iTunes Store gains Star Trek podcasts, music and books, American Dad debuts
First, the original Star Trek debuted in the iTunes Store, then the TV series (not movies) was pulled for some odd reason. Then the shows returned, but now we have a dedicated Star Trek section that's been beefed up with podcasts, music (soundtracks, really), audiobooks and more. Now all we need TNG and Farscape, and the iTS's Sci-Fi section will be complete.In the TV Show comedy aisle, however, another classic has been added: American Dad, beginning with a season pass for Season 2 (1, strangely, is nowhere to be found) at $37.99. Now all we need is Family Guy and I might very well be able to cancel my Comcast cable service.
Star Trek in iTunes (again)
Back in January, episodes of the original Star Trek TV series were added to the US iTunes store. Then they disappeared, and now they're back again - two times over.Specifically, the original first season [iTunes link], is listed separately from the digitally enhanced episodes from the same season [iTunes link]. We'd like to say that the former is for purists, and the latter for the more adventurous among us, but iTunes customers have left comments stating that both collections feature enhanced episodes.It's more confusing than The Menagerie.Anyway, if you're a fan of TOS (and who isn't, really?), go and pick this up.
Purdue researchers craft handheld chemical analyzer, likens Tricorder
Hot on the heels of being crowned the most prolific pirating university in the land, Purdue is donning its halo once again by kicking out yet another invention that will surely make the world a better place to reside. The Mini 10 prototype is a handheld chemical analyzer that its creators have likened to Star Trek's "Tricorder," and while the internal abilities should genuinely impress, we're handing out a round of golf claps for the uber-glitzy motif it's got going on. The sophisticated sensing system measures just 13.5- x 8.5- x 7.5-inches and weighs in at 22-pounds, which is around 30 times less than conventional mass spectrometers, and aside from its ability to be completely portable via battery power, it still sports the same sniffing capabilities as its mammoth-sized siblings. In order to cram such potent chemical sensing abilities into such a small package, a miniature mass spectrometer is "combined with a technique called desorption electrospray ionization (DESI)," and can display the chemical composition of materials in a "matter of minutes without harming the samples." Interestingly enough, the prototype has already analyzed garb, food, and actual cocaine, and while we're not quite sure when you'll be able to snatch one of these up to "check in" on your mischievous teen, a couple of Indiana-based firms are apparently already looking into commercialization options.Slashdot]
Star Trek shows pulled from iTunes Store (US)
Here's something strange: it seems that all Star Trek TV shows have been pulled from the iTunes Store (US). Apple Gazette identified the omission this morning, and darned if we can find them. The movies are still in place, however.Anyway, they're gone... maybe caught in a Tholian web.
Star Trek Enterprise now available on iTunes
I have no qualms about the fact that I am a grade A geek. All the signs are there: I work in IT, I write about Apple, and I love Star Trek. The latest member of the Star Trek franchise, Star Trek Enterprise, is now available in the iTunes Store (you might know ST Enterprise as, 'That one with that guy from Quantum Leap'). At the moment only the first season is available, but I am sure the rest of the show's seasons will show up (I'm looking forward to the last season which is when the show actually became pretty OK).Episodes are priced at the standard $1.99 and you can get the entire season for $48.99, which isn't a bad price considering the DVD box set of the first season is going for $112 on Amazon (though, to be fair the DVD set includes some special features).Here's hoping Deep Space 9 shows up on iTunes soon.
