This delicious treat is dark chocolate with light caramel frosting. I’m sure it was enjoyed on their special day. Happy anniversary Maya and Barry. Live long and prosper.

[via Geeks Are Sexy]

These cute and creative books are full of fun activities like helping Geordie get his visor on, and piloting the Shuttlecraft back to its dock. For now, Juliebell is only selling printable patterns for the quiet books, but the puppets are are available as a complete set.

So head on over to Etsy and buy some of these for your little Starfleet cadet (or Padawan.) He/she will thank you for it later.

[via Geek Crafts via Neatorama]

Look, the balloon popped. I’m willing to bet that if you had been hit by that beam, you would have screamed and dropped to the floor like a Ferengi losing a latinum fortune. It would have at least hurt you a little. We aren’t sure if the sound is part of the weapon or added later, but it completes the effect.

[via Geek]

Made by crafts captain Julie Gillrie, the book is made of felt and is filled with lots of fun toys and activities to keep your kid – or you! –  occupied, from finger puppets of the crew to a glove that will help your kid rock the Vulcan salute.

The book has earned the approval of none other than Enterprise crew member Wesley Crusher aka Wil Wheaton. Unfortunately, Julie isn’t actually selling the book itself, only a pdf with a list of instructions to make the book. Unfortunatelier, the pdf itself has already been bought. As of this writing Julie does have a Star Wars quiet book, but if your kid is a trekkie he’ll probably scream in your face if you get him that one instead.

[Julie Gillrie via Geek Crafts]

For $24.99 (USD), you can get your own inflatable Star Trek captain’s chair. The chair is decorated to look just like the one Kirk used on the bridge as he boldly went around the universe in the original series. The chair measures 27.75″(H) x 29.25″(W) x 18″(D), and will hold a maximum weight of 120 pounds, so normal-sized adults can’t really sit on it – at least not more than once. I wonder if the chair would float upright if you used it as a pool toy.

This would be the perfect chair for your little Star Trek geek while you watch reruns together. Personally, I would rather see an inflatable recreation of Jean-Luc Picard’s chair, but that’s just me.

The cooler of the two designs is the Mark 2 tricorder, and it is crammed with dual OLED touchscreens and uses a clamshell form factor. This particular tricorder runs Debian Linux and uses hardware that you can readily buy at specialty shops. Its CPU is an Atmel AT91RM9200 with an ARM920T 32-bit core. These tricorders don’t measure health stats, so won’t win that massive X Prize purse, but they will totally get you laid at Comic-Con.

The Mark 2 tricorder uses six AAA batteries for power. Inside the case are sensors for measuring temperature, humidity, atmospheric pressure, magnetic fields, color, ambient light levels, GPS location, and the distance to a surface. It won’t ferret out Klingons or help you figure out what killed that hapless redshirt, but I like it anyway.

Details on how to build both the Mark 1 and Mark 2 tricorders are available over on Dr. Jensen’s website.

[via ArsTechnica]

Microsoft’s Universal Translator software was created by Frank Soong. It’s software that’s basically able to speak in the user’s own voice, smoothly in sentences. Right now, Microsoft’s UT speaks 26 languages but there are more to come. All you need to do is speak English into it and it will convert it into different languages, from Spanish to Mandarin. All told, it takes about an hour to train the system with your voice.

The software will be used to help students learn new languages and develop more accurate translation apps. You can hear some samples of the translated voices over at TechnologyReview, including the voice of Rick Rashid, Microsoft’s Chief Research and Strategy Officer.

While no translation software is 100% accurate, it’s still pretty impressive. This is really cool technology, and with the dramatic increases in mobile device capabilities, it’s only a matter of time before they could package it into a handheld gadget, just like the one in Star Trek. (Except for the part where it can translate alien languages it’s never heard before.)

[via DVice]

One of the most popular episodes of the original series came in the second season and was titled The Doomsday Machine. The episode was written by Norman Spinrad. Apparently, Spinrad also wrote a second episode, which was so badly butchered by a line producer during rewrites, Spinrad had his own script killed by the big man Gene Roddenberry. That script was called He Walked Among Us and was meant to be a dramatic episode featuring none other than Milton Berle.

That dastardly line producer rewrote the episode as a comedy and it was apparently packed with epic suck. Spinrad says when he read the script with all its revisions he told Roddenberry it was a horrible episode. Roddenberry agreed and the episode was never filmed in either the revised or original versions. At some point that original script was lost and remained so for 45 years.

Recently, a fan returned a copy of the original manuscript to Spinrad and he has now published it is an e-book. I haven’t had a chance to read it yet, but early reviews are very positive. Kindle users can grab the 189-page script over on Amazon for $9 (USD). It’s also available for NOOK users in ePub format over at Barnes & Noble.

[via Star Trek via Forbes]

They might not be Federation approved, but if I were Captain, I’d have these in my chambers regardless of any Pillow Directives. These handmade pillows come in three styles: gold (for command), blue (for science), and red (for engineering). The guys over at Yellow Bug Boutique, who make these, claim that there is also a missing red security pillow which “was vaporized in scene 2.”

Each one measures 14″ x 14″ and is made from fleece and felt. Trekkies can head over to Etsy and beam down a set of three pillows for $100 (USD). Individual pillows will set you back $35 each, plus shipping. I wonder what shipping rates will be like once they perfect transporter technology.

Burn marks on your stuff are highly illogical and besides, the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, live long and prosper, etc. By the time this pot holder has been in service for say, five years, it will start to look like Spock from the end of Wrath of Khan. All battered and food stained, but not dying in engineering.

It was made by Flickr user Kailand and would be a great addition to any kitchen. If only she had created enough for all of us.

[via Geek Crafts via Craftzine]

This bit of geeky awesomeness is the Starship Enterprise coffee table. It’s a one-of-a-kind handcrafted hardwood model of old NCC-1701-C, carefully placed under glass to protect it from phaser attacks (and spills.) It was made by wood artist Barry Shields, who couldn’t have a more appropriate name, unless it was Joe Nacelles, Steve Photon Torpedo, or Harry Warp Core.

Barry says it took him over a month to build it just the way he wanted, and it shows. I love how he even made the glass on top match the lines of the Enterprise. The base lifts the ship off the ground, making it look as if it’s hovering above the thick-pile planetary surface (rug) below.

It’s made from cherry, ash and poplar wood, along with steel supports and the aforementioned glass top. Barry doesn’t list the exact dimensions of the Enterprise itself, but the glass is 34″ x 54″, and the table is about 17″ tall, so it’d definitely a full-size coffee table. If you want it, beam yourself on over to Etsy, and get your credit card out – since it’s going to cost you a cool $3,100 (USD) if you want this in your home. Frankly, I think that’s a small price to pay to own the coolest coffee table in the neighborhood.

[via SUATMM]

This is not the work of a starbase of a Federation shipyard. It comes from Christer Nyberg, who used somewhere between ten to fifteen thousand LEGO pieces to build it. The ship also sports several lights, so that it can look cool at night.

This is an amazing LEGO reproduction of the classic ship. Just look at that detail. It makes me want to see an entirely LEGO version of Star Trek II. The space battles would look awesome as phasers hit and bricks fly everywhere. Somebody make it so!

[via Brothers Brick via Geekosystem]

If doctors at the offices around town had tricorders like Spock and the rest of the Enterprise crew, I might go. That is assuming it’s capable of diagnosing any issues in the intestinal tract without some sort of nasty invasive procedure. Then they could just do that scan thing and not have to poke or prod. Qualcomm wants some tricorder action too and it has teamed up with the X Prize people to offer a cool $10 million to the smart folks that can invent one. It’s going to be tough to do though. Here’s a description of the criteria for the tricorder:

“As envisioned for this competition, the device will be a tool capable of capturing key health metrics and diagnosing a set of 15 diseases. Metrics for health could include such elements as blood pressure, respiratory rate, and temperature. Ultimately, this tool will collect large volumes of data from ongoing measurement of health states through a combination of wireless sensors, imaging technologies, and portable, non-invasive laboratory replacements.”

Apparently, the way to make something like this work with today’s tech is by measuring metabolites. The catch is that the hardware needed to measure metabolites is inside a chunk of lab equipment about as large as a Mini Cooper. It looks like I’ll be avoiding the doctor for a few more years to come.

[via BBC]

I don’t know about where you live, but here it has been like spring all winter so far, but don’t let a warm winter stop you from geeking out in these fuzzy Vulcan ears. You can make them yourself easily in just 30 minutes using the pattern on the website.

All of the directions you need are provided for you. It’s up to you to get the matching uniform, haircut and serious Vulcan scowl. Oh, and don’t forget the ever important arching of the eyebrows.

[via Croshame]

If I can make a request, now I want to see you DIY-ers make a Millenium Falcon mailbox, and a Death Star mailbox. Then I would like you to sell them to me cheap. We need geekier mailboxes, people. Get on it.

[via TDW Geeks via Geekologie]

Are you ready to replace your redshirt with one of these, you scruffy looking nerf herder? Then vote for it over at Threadless, and you’ll be warping through hyperspace a long, long time ago on a five-year mission soon.

Got 24 hours to spare? Here:

As if that wasn’t absurd enough, crysknife007 also made an HD version. It’s only one and a half hours long, but come on.

Thankfully, he also uploaded an audio (.ogg) file of the 24-hour loop. Warp to Mediafire for the free download.

[via io9]

The Borg Cube is particularly interesting with its square shape and appears to be made from a bunch of LEGO Technic parts. The builder doesn’t offer much in the way of details on the creation, and only offers up one picture, but it still looks really cool, especially because both ships appear to only use a handful of parts.

I wish he had given some sort of idea how the constructed the Borg Cube so we could try and replicate it. The photo doesn’t show a lot of detail on the components either; but apparently he used a bunch of Minifig Sextants – assimilated, of course, from other LEGO sets.

[via Brothers-Brick]

I’m not a Doctor Who fan myself, but even if I was I’d still probably think this shirt is unbalanced in its variety. Where’s Doctor Doom? Dr. Strange? Dr. Fate? Dr. Arthur Light? And again, no Zoidberg?! The art’s great though. Dr. Manhattan’s giant head made me smile. You can order the shirt at Red Bubble for about $28 (USD).

[via Shirtoid]

I used the RedLaser app to scan it. If everything went right, your scanner should direct you to this link, which contains this picture:

At first I thought the QR code would make a costume pop up over her shirt. Guess I was hoping it would be an augmented reality target instead, so I am a little disappointed. Still, it’s certainly a nerdy, if roundabout way of costuming.

[via Reddit via Neatorama]