perfidy

Via Spoons, we are informed that the inevitable has finally happened. Ever since the introduction of cellphones, I have been waiting for this moment:

This can be your new cell phone. It won't make you cool like Kirk, or smart like Spock, but indulge your inner geek. It really has been a mystery to me that this has taken so long to arrive on the market. Even short of a full-on communicator replica case cell phone, why no cell phone company has equipped a flipphone with a spring loaded opener is a complete enigma. Those things, while generally convenient, are a pain to open one handed. A Trek style opener would have been an enormous improvement even in a regular looking phone.

While looking for the image above, I also found this:

Vocera's communication badge works like the communicators on ST:TNG. Press the button and say a name, and - assumming the person you wish to speak to is on the network - you'll be patched in via Voice over Internet Protocol. Pretty sweet.

Now all we need are wrist phones a la Dick Tracy, real video phones like the Jetsons, and of course jet cars and vacations on the moon.

Speaking of which, that last is one step closer to reality. At least, if you have a hundred million dollars burning a hole in your pocket.

Space Adventures, a company based in Arlington, Va., has already sent two tourists into orbit. Today, it is to unveil an agreement with Russian space officials to send two passengers on a voyage lasting 10 to 21 days, depending partly on its itinerary and whether it includes the International Space Station.

A roundtrip ticket will cost $100 million. 

The space-faring tourists will travel with a Russian pilot. They will steer clear of the greater technical challenge of landing on the Moon, instead circling it and returning to Earth.

Eric Anderson, the chief executive of Space Adventures, said he believed the trip could be accomplished as early as 2008. Mr. Anderson said he had already received expressions of interest from a few potential clients.

Given NASA's recent history of accomplishment, I think this is more likely to happen than a US Government mission back to the moon. Who'd have thunk, in 1969 after the momentous triumph of the Apollo landings, that the next visit to the moon would be by American millionaires flying on forty-year old Russian rockets? The world, she is an effed-up place.