Star Trek Technology for Lawyers

    My 10 year old twins have finally discovered Star Trek.  Apparently TV Land is running a Star Trek marathon over the weekend and the excited 4th Graders couldn't wait to tell me all about it.  Looking back on the 1960's show it still amazes me how much vision Gene Roddenberry had for the future state of technology.  Who could have imagined then computer data cards the size of credit cards holding untold megabits of data, or a wireless communicator that fit into the palm of the hand that could contact anyone else with such a device simply by saying their name, or the ever-useful tri-corder capable of mathematical computations, navigation, and acquiring medical data, among other things.  Yet only 40 years later we have data cards and memory sticks the size of our small finger that hold Gigabytes of data, everyone has a palm sized cellular telephone (many of which accept voice dialing commands), and our PDA's can perform complex computations, GPS navigation, and keep up with our contacts and schedules effortlessly.  Who  can imagine practicing law without these tools today.
    My favorite StarTrek technology for law practice is, of course, voice recognition.  I remember the scene in Star Trek III where Scottie picked up the mouse of the Macintosh computer and began to speak to it, and the theater errupted with laugheter.  And yet today, a mere 15 years later, I strap a cordless microphone over my ear each morning and dictate to my computer on a daily  basis. In my next post, I will go into detail on my successes and failures with voice recognition in the law office.  Until then, live long and prosper.