GSM, CDMA, or Subspace Frequencies?

Joseph Laszlo | August 23, 2005, 11:52 AM

Wired News yesterday carried a piece about a marketing tie-in that arguably should've happened a while ago, but in honor of Star Trek's 40th Anniversary (40!!) Viacom and a firm called Sona Mobile will be building and marketing a cellphone based on a communicator from the original series.

From the Wired article:

Viacom and Sona are still finalizing details of the look and features that the communicator phone, due in stores Sept. 30, will sport. But fans can expect the devices to chirp and beep with ringtones that mimic the familiar sounds of the communicators used in the Star Trek TV series and movies.

Instead of Star Fleet Command being behind the technology, it's Sona Mobile's Sona Wireless Platform. Users will be able to stream video clips simultaneously while text messaging or web surfing, without negatively affecting device performance, according to Sona.

Not to be a naysayer of anything related to Trek in its golden era, but it'll be interesting to see how the designers of this product reconcile the desire to be true to old trek tech with the fact that phones today are much much sleeker and smaller than Captain Kirk's communicator. Big time bonus points, though, if they make a bluetooth earpiece that looks like Lieutenant Uhura's.

BTW, I'm betting it's GSM.

[Live long and prosper to CTAM's SmartBrief for pointing this out.]