spock

'Star Trek' musical goes where no school has gone before

For most of us, gone are the days of middle school -- that forgettable time of transition when we blossom from innocence into awkward young adults. Students who were confident enough at that age might have participated in student musical productions. But few impress like "Star Trek: The Middle School Musical" created by comedic duo Rhett McLaughlin and Link Neal.

If you're a "Trek" fan, you'll likely enjoy the mock musical; it's awash with amusing lyrics, cuteness, and references to various aspects of the canon, ranging from the Kobayashi Maru Starfleet test, Gorn, and the poison flower that turned Spock into a lover.… Read more

When 'Star Trek' stars play product pitchman

If Starfleet Academy has a Marketing 101 class, these commercials must surely be on the syllabus.

Twice in recent days, Earth's ad agencies have dispatched officers of the "Star Trek" franchise on missions not to seek out new worlds, but to sell new products.

First came a video clip from PC maker Acer using clips from the imminent "Star Trek Into Darkness," docking soon in a movie theater near you, to pump up the excitement for its new flagship Aspire R7.

Then Audi flew into view with a two-minute Spock vs. Spock spiel for its … Read more

Spock oven mitt: For food hot out of the replicator

Food generally isn't too big of a deal in the "Star Trek" universe unless you're talking about tribbles eating all the quadrotriticale or Picard ordering up a hot cup of tea to go with his space scones.

All those Enterprise crew members still have to eat and that means there's going to be some hot food coming out of the replicators. That also means you're going to need a space-worthy oven mitt. A Spock oven mitt. The $14.99 oversize Spock hand has just enough blue uniform on the cuff to designate its rank.… Read more

iPhone case turns you into a Vulcan

The deluge of smartphone cases out there means you can choose from nearly every color and style imaginable. But as far as we know, only one delivers Spock ears.

Etsy artisan Jeff Chris currently sells a $15 "Spock ear design" iPhone 4/4S case that features the familiar elven sideburns and pointed ear commonly seen on most Vulcan profiles. The silicone rubber case comes in either black or white, and should illicit gazes of wonder and curiosity as you mindlessly chatter away while walking in public. Just make sure to look both ways so you live long and prosper. … Read more

Crave 49: Dolls for dentists (podcast)

Robots just became a whole lot more real this week as Japanese sex dolls help dental students perfect their technique and robot armpits assault your senses. We also pay equal time to Star Wars and Star Trek merchandise, and evaluate the forefront of giant hamburger technology and America's contribution.

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The dad who only talked to his son in Klingon

Just like everyone who grew up on something of a "Star Trek" diet, I want to believe.

I want to believe that Spock will rise from the dead, get married, and have pointy-eared offspring, who, regressing to the mean, will become sports-loving couch potatoes. I want to believe that Captain Kirk will shack up with Uhura on Pluto and lead a fight to have the planet recognized as one of the greats.

And I want to believe that d'Armond Speers really did only speak to his son in Klingon for the first three years of the little boy's life.

You don't remember d'Armond? Well, he first entered the Trekkie firmament in a 1999 Wired article, in which he told of how difficult it had been to communicate solely in the limited language of Klingon with his then 30-month-old son, Alec.

He even presented a recording of little Alec singing the opening bars of the Klingon Imperial Anthem.

The story has this week been updated with some extraordinary news.… Read more

Spock now live, open to everyone

Spock, a new search engine that searches for people, has opened its doors to all as of this morning. I was actually able to use the service freely early yesterday, but things were a bit slow going--and still are. How does it stack up? Well, we got our hands on it a few months back while it was still in private beta and came away with a few concerns, mostly about the speed and its database of noncelebrities.

To my surprise, however, a quick search this morning picked up a good number of people in my family, many of whom have no real Internet presence. The service claims to have more than 100 million people in its database as of this morning. If you can't find yourself, you can register with the service and claim your name.

Charles Cooper over at CNET News.com has an interesting Q&A with Spock's CEO and cofounder Jaideep Singh. Some of the topics discussed include what content the service is indexing, the business plan, and some background on how the tool works.

Below is a widget of some Spock results. As you can see, feeding it "John Smith" is hardly a fair task, yielding everything from politicians to porn stars.To see it, click the read more link below.… Read more

PeekYou people search can't find Jack

The PeekYou people search engine launched today in open beta. It's yet another site (see Wink and Spock) designed to help you find people.

If you're interested in this space, my recommendation is to use Wink. Spock is still in closed beta, and PeekYou's current beta is unimpressive. Despite the company's claim of 50 million people in the database, there are many duplicates (over 700 entries for George Bush, each with a few links--and typing George W. Bush doesn't work to narrow the results). And there's no good way to tell who's who … Read more

Spock: All your contacts are belong to us

The people search engine Spock is still in very private beta, but the doors opened up a crack this morning when a few more people were let in to the system, including me. Now that I've been able to play with the service, it's easy to see that Spock's creators are trying to build more than just a Google of people. Spock is also being built to map the relationships of people to each other.

This is made clear when beta users activate their invitation code. Spock asks you first for your personal connections: It wants you … Read more

Top 5 from Web 2.0 Expo

The first Web 2.0 Expo is behind us, and it was a good show. In addition to dozens of interesting panels (including, if I do say so, mine), there were about 115 companies presenting on a crowded expo show floor, and six interesting company presentations during the "Launchpad" sessions that ran on Monday and Tuesday.

With Webware.com's Josh Lowensohn and News.com's Erica Ogg, we picked our Top 5 Web 2.0 services from the conference. They are:

Tellme, which has a new downloadable app for getting useful 411-like info on your mobile phone. ( … Read more