Mike
08-12-2005, 10:04 PM
Two tech companies have announced plans to boldly go where no wireless phone company has gone before, with the release in September of a mobile telephone that resembles the communicators featured on the popular 1960s television series ''Star Trek.''
With a black body and face plate, the new Star Trek Communicator Phones will, from the outside, strongly resemble the devices featured on the show, although they will be slightly smaller, said Marie Wiese, vice president of marketing for Sona Mobile, a mobile software company that is partnering with Viacom Consumer Products to sell the phones.
Flip them open, however, and they will look not much different from a cell phone, with the flip top forming the screen and the black body forming the dial pad, she said.
''It is obviously a natural,'' said Gary Berman, who grew up in New York and says he is an avid ''Star Trek'' fan. ''It is interesting that tech is catching up with what we have seen in the '60s.''
As co-chief executive of Creation Entertainment, Berman is the organizer of the Official Fourth Annual Star Trek Las Vegas Convention. The convention, which started Thursday, is expected to attract upward of 12,000 ''Star Trek,'' fans, in addition to Sona and Viacom, which will be exhibiting, he said.
The new cell phones will be manufactured by an as-yet undisclosed company and, in the United States, will be serviced by an also undisclosed cellular network administrator, Wiese said. She added that ''Star Trek'' fans will have to pay $10 per month on top of their usual cell phone bills to own the special Star Trek phones and the special features and services that will come with them.
These, Wiese said, will include instant Star Trek community message boards and a computer game called Fleetwars that phone users will be able to play with other phone users around the country. A Trekkie will even be able to download any ''Star Trek'' episode in streaming video on demand.
Unlike the devices on the ''Star Trek'' series, however, Wiese said that users will have to speak into them like a normal phone, not flip them open and talk into them from a distance, as the characters did in the television program.
Initially, the two companies will be marketing the phones in North America and Britain, attempting to tap into a market of loyal ''Star Trek'' fans that is believed to number in the millions. A Star Trek Communicator replica recently sold on eBay for a whopping 380 pounds sterling, or $682.
Berman of Creation Entertainment said Trekkies offer an attractive market for technology product developers. They are manic devotees of the program and tend to be tech savvy. What is more, she said, ''They are wealthy. They are all the computer guys.''
Source: Salt Lake Tribune (http://www.sltrib.com/business/ci_2935012)
I hope it comes to Canada, I want to buy one. :mbx:
With a black body and face plate, the new Star Trek Communicator Phones will, from the outside, strongly resemble the devices featured on the show, although they will be slightly smaller, said Marie Wiese, vice president of marketing for Sona Mobile, a mobile software company that is partnering with Viacom Consumer Products to sell the phones.
Flip them open, however, and they will look not much different from a cell phone, with the flip top forming the screen and the black body forming the dial pad, she said.
''It is obviously a natural,'' said Gary Berman, who grew up in New York and says he is an avid ''Star Trek'' fan. ''It is interesting that tech is catching up with what we have seen in the '60s.''
As co-chief executive of Creation Entertainment, Berman is the organizer of the Official Fourth Annual Star Trek Las Vegas Convention. The convention, which started Thursday, is expected to attract upward of 12,000 ''Star Trek,'' fans, in addition to Sona and Viacom, which will be exhibiting, he said.
The new cell phones will be manufactured by an as-yet undisclosed company and, in the United States, will be serviced by an also undisclosed cellular network administrator, Wiese said. She added that ''Star Trek'' fans will have to pay $10 per month on top of their usual cell phone bills to own the special Star Trek phones and the special features and services that will come with them.
These, Wiese said, will include instant Star Trek community message boards and a computer game called Fleetwars that phone users will be able to play with other phone users around the country. A Trekkie will even be able to download any ''Star Trek'' episode in streaming video on demand.
Unlike the devices on the ''Star Trek'' series, however, Wiese said that users will have to speak into them like a normal phone, not flip them open and talk into them from a distance, as the characters did in the television program.
Initially, the two companies will be marketing the phones in North America and Britain, attempting to tap into a market of loyal ''Star Trek'' fans that is believed to number in the millions. A Star Trek Communicator replica recently sold on eBay for a whopping 380 pounds sterling, or $682.
Berman of Creation Entertainment said Trekkies offer an attractive market for technology product developers. They are manic devotees of the program and tend to be tech savvy. What is more, she said, ''They are wealthy. They are all the computer guys.''
Source: Salt Lake Tribune (http://www.sltrib.com/business/ci_2935012)
I hope it comes to Canada, I want to buy one. :mbx: