Star Trek
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Barrage of HTCs rumored in the pipeline
HTC, making sure that the enjoyment of our fresh Star Trek is kept to an absolute minimum, looks to be preparing a spectrum of lustworthy new devices. This information is entirely unconfirmed, and we don't know much about what we're about to tell you -- some of these code names are as new to us as they are to you -- but we can tell you it comes from a reliable source.First up, the Muse has been mercifully renamed the "Melody," and the Triolgy has become "Monet." The Hermes, which is just starting to drop across Europe, has been upped to 400MHz for full-scale production; you might recall we recently reported that O2 was bringing a 400MHz Hermes to the table, and it now appears this will be standard fare for launches going forward. Trinity (pictured) specs are coming into focus, and we should expect this beast to throw down HSDPA, WiFi, and integrated GPS. There have been some rumblings of an "Artemis" recently, and that device still appears to be on the map, bringing integrated GPS and a trackball (wha?) but topping out with EDGE data. The "Herald" sounds positively gorgeous, similar in concept and functionality to the Hermes but measuring just 17mm thick. The Foreseer and Monet will be joined by the "Oxygen" in HTC's mobile TV lineup, though we don't know which standard it'll be packing. Looking to steal some of the Q's thunder, the "Excalibur" will be getting its QWERTY on and running Smartphone. Finally, look for "Vera" as a possible successor to the Star Trek, packing HSDPA and a front-facing camera for video calling.That's a lot of unconfirmed data to digest, we know, and we're still trying to make sense of it all ourselves. No word on release windows for most of these -- if we could divine you a Vera tomorrow, we would -- but as always, we'll be burning the midnight oil in our quest for deets.
UK scientists working on cloaking device
We've heard of these kinds of guys before. They've spent too much time engrossed in Harry Potter books or old Star Trek episodes, and dream of some sort of device that will make them invisible. Every couple of years, one of them surfaces with a new idea about a "cloaking device" that can bend light around solid objects, making them appear to be invisible. This time, two separate teams in the UK are racing to show that the concept is feasible. One group, at Imperial College in London, believes that light-bending metamaterials can be produced within the next decade. Meanwhile, two mathematicians have published a study in the Proceedings of the Royal Society, which claims that a "superlens" placed close to an object could produce an "anomalous localized resonance," essentially rendering the underlying object invisible by creating a phantom light wave using the same frequency. The scientists envision building a device soon -- one that could conceivably cloak particles of dust. We'll check back with both parties in a few years. In the meantime, we'd like to present our detailed artist's rendering, prepared at great cost and with much research, which we believe truly shows what a cloaked object will look like to the naked eye. Read - MetamaterialsRead - Superlens
Qtek 8500 / HTC Star Trek gets UK price, launch date, new name
Contradicting an earlier report that the Qtek 8500 / HTC Star Trek smartphone would available in the UK sometime this month, The Register is now citing an official announcement from HTC that claims the Windows Mobile-powered clamshell won't hit stores until "late June." Furthermore, Reg Hardware is reporting that the Star Trek will henceforth be known as the STRTrk, probably to avoid trademark issues with Spock and friends, due to the fact that the internal codename has seen widespread adoption. (Not sure that this will do any good, as now we'll have to include a "the phone formerly known as the HTC Star Trek" every time we mention one of the rebadges). Whatever you want to call it, the music-centric device will supposedly come in black, silver, or pink, and go on sale during the third week of June, at least according to distributor 20:20 Logistics, for around $500 before carrier subsidies.
Star Trek: Legacy site launches
Bethesda Softworks has launched the official web site for Star Trek Legacy, an action-strategy title for the PC and Xbox 360 due in September. The Star Trek franchise has seen many similar titles from the Starfleet Command, Bridge Commander, and Armada series, but is due for a little next gen shake-up. Capt. Kirk once said, "In every revolution, there's one man with a vision," and Legacy's man is Mad Doc Software founder Dr. Ian Davis, who will bring his company's renowned AI to the latest Trek mission. Davis has said Legacy will feel like a squad-based shooter with space ships, while maintaining the traditional RTS and tactical elements. Fascinating!
Hands-on with the KG800 (Chocolate) and Dopod S300 (Star Trek)
Good times can be had over at our sister site, Engadget Chinese, which has managed some alone time with two recent releases, the LG KG800 Chocolate and Dopod S300 HTC Star Trek. Both phones are plenty sexy in their own way, with the KG800's obvious aesthetics leading the charge, but the S300's ability to pack in all that Windows Mobile goodness in such a small package earning it plenty of kudos as well. Decisions, decisions.Read: LG KG800Read: Dopod S300
HTC profiled in BusinessWeek
It's only rather recently that smartphone manufacturer High Tech Computer Corp. became more than just another obscure OEM making reference devices, and BusinessWeek has an inside look at the factors that propelled HTC from unknown to Microsoft's go-to-guy. HTC was founded in 1997 by a group of refugee engineers from Digital Equipment Corp's Taiwanese subsidiary, and they immediately began to focus their efforts on handheld devices -- more specifically those that run one of the flavors of portable Windows. This early dedication to Microsoft operating systems (HTC was responsible for designing the first iPaqs), along with CEO Peter Chou's renowned attention to detail (he sent the Star Trek back three times before he was satisfied with its features) and the creative rein given to employees (whose titles include "Wizard" of this or "Magician" of that) made the company one of Redmond's favorite hardware partners. And even if HTC isn't yet a household name, investors have most definitely taken notice of its performance: the company's consistent double-digit growth (last year's $356 million in profits were triple the previous year's) have caused its stock to skyrocket more than 1000% since 2003.[Thanks, Dave Z.]
HTC Hermes and StarTrek launch plans revealed
Well, well, well, it looks like HTC took the opportunity to detail their 2006 US launch plans at CTIA while dropping that DVB-H capable Foreseer we peeped earlier. According to Phone Scoop who had the opportunity to sit down with an "HTC exec," we’ll see the quad-band GSM/EDGE HTC Star Trek WinMo 5.0 Smartphone arrive on these golden shores in mid-2006 while the HTC Hermes (pictured) should arrive sometime in Q4, most likely with Cingular. The US flavor of the 3G Hermes will go WCDMA 850/1900/2100 with all that high-speed HSDPA we’ve got the rangin' fiend for. Good to know.
Battlefield 2142 scans of PC Gamer cover story leaked
The Battlefield 2142 hoopla is starting to look more and more real as scans of the PC Gamer issue in question have surfaced online with BF 2142 featured as the magazine's May cover story. Digg contributor Iced_Eagle has pointed us to an 8.5MB archive of images from the mag, with 9 pages concerned with 2142 and 2 pages having to do with Half-Life 2: Episode 1. If you're interested in knowing "where your unstoppable 20-foot Mech is," then you'd best get to that reading online or off ASAP. For those still skeptical of any gaming news outlet coming out with such a story in the general vicinity of April Fools' Day, keep in mind that the game appears to not only be the magazine's cover story, but that its coverage also fills up all those pages of print mentioned earlier. EGM merely dedicated a single page with a brief line in the table of contents to its Apple iGame prank this year, so this would seem like a lot of effort on PC Gamer or some extremely dedicated Photoshopper's part to fool the gaming public. Will this fall prove to be the point when the BF franchise finally frags in the future? At this point, it would certainly seem so. Read on for further details about the game; the cover pic links to the scans.
Star Trek Online tidbits
Star Trek Online has over a year to go until beta, but if you can't wait that long to get some idea of what it'll be like, this article at MMORPG.com should help. Complete with some early screenshots, the Q&A with producer Daron Stinnett focuses on some of the design decisions involved in the game.As some of the game's developers are actively monitoring fan forums for feedback (Perpetual have yet to create official forums), it looks as if you can get your opinions heard by hanging out in the right places. If you spot a Star Trek Online dev frequenting your favourite boards, let us know.[Fixed typo, thanks Andy Pan]
More Star Trek info beams aboard
Two weeks ago, Bethesda announced the development of a new Star Trek game for the PSP (as well as other consoles). The news came out-of-the-blue and was quite a surprise across the industry. Gamecloud has conducted an interesting interview with Bethesda regarding the deal, the games themselves and how they are being created. "We feel like it’s a great license for video games that has never reached its full potential, and we think we know how to take a Star Trek game to the next level. We’ve got what we think are good ideas to use the license in a way that fits both the license and the kind of games generally that people expect and want to play, plus talented people to implement those ideas. It also allows us to move into some genres and platforms we haven’t gone after to date so it felt like something we really wanted to do."You can read the full interview here.
Apple Intel ad a ripoff of Star Trek First Contact?
I don't want to add fire to the Postal Service/Apple Intel ad controversy, but a keen eyed observer notes that the Postal Service video is a ripoff of a scene in Star Trek: First Contact, therefore Apple isn't just ripping off a rock and roll band but a cultural icon.Now, before you firing your commenting fingers please note that this is a joke, and an attempt to point out how ridiculous this whole issue has gotten. Now you make feel free to flame me all you like.
