Yet Another Inspiration from Star Trek

We recently purchased a Nook eReader for my wife's birthday. And I have been looking at tablets (like the iPad). After playing with several of these tablets, I started to think about some of the Star Trek TV series we used to watch.

I think we owe the writers and visionaries of Star Trek yet another kudo for their view of future technologies.

Among other things they gave us the "communicator", which our modern-day flip phones resemble. They gave us the medical tricorder which is a shrunken version, in part, of our current MRI machines. And they gave us the iPad.

I can remember two scenes in particular in Star Trek Next Generation (which was shown in the mid to late 1980s). One was of Geordi LaForge, the Enterprise's engineer, and his subordinates standing around the "table" in engineering, and littered across the table were a bunch of "pads" -- the 24th century equivalent of clipboards, spiral notebooks, or regular books (like engineering manuals). Each of these was providing them information or real-time data about the ship. And the table was itself, in places, a giant pad which allowed them to enter and retrieve data in various ways. (Remember the bridge controls? How they could change their appearance and layout to allow for different uses?)

The second scene was of Captain Picard in his office which was right off the  bridge. He too was studying something when someone wanted to come in and  talk  to him. And there in that scene was a bunch of data pads strewn across  his desk.

Well, we are there. Get a gathering of your friends together and see what  happens when someone asks a question. They probably will all whip out their  "mini data pads" (smart phones), begin tapping away, and within seconds have  the answer. Now bring iPads, XOOM, Kindle, Nook, and others into the mix  and, presto, you have a scene out of Star Trek Next Generation...with  slightly different players and costumes.

So what item from Star Trek will be invented next?