Star Trek tech is in the news again - this time being compared to a PC with a voice-to-text interface, a communication device for medical professionals and a portable ultrasound scanner.

Intel's presentation at the WinHEC conference in Seattle presented a "Star Trek-Like" concept PC, according to ABC News. This system has a separate LCD navigation screen and "a voice-to-text navigation interface...a la Star Trek" which would allow users to walk into a room and order a particular piece of music or television to play without touching a console.

MedfordNews.com reported on a "Star Trek Communicator" that helps bedridden patients contact nurses and doctors contact assistants without needing to know their phone numbers or locations. The device, called the Vocera, has been tested previously by surgeons and is now being made available to patients. "Vocera is as close as you can get to Star Trek communicators. It does almost everything that the Star Trek ones did - except beam you up," said senior information system project leader Natasha Farvan.

And GE has issued a press release about an ultrasound scanner - the LOGIQ e - a notebook-sized scanner that would allow a technician to resolve an image at an emergency or crime scene. "Remember on Star Trek when they'd just wave that small device over someone and it would beep a bunch of times and the doctor had all the analysis they needed?" asked the reprint at BloggingStocks. "Now companies are working harder and harder to get the Star Trek tricorder to become a reality."

With a cloaking device, synthehol and an antimatter rocket under investigation and the Star Trek phone on the market, Star Trek remains closely linked to scientific breakthroughs.

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