Editing FederalSpace:Technology (section)

===== Commentary =====
'''LordDraqo:''' Idea - Shadowjack didn't know what he was planning to do about tricorders. A couple of years back I was enjoying an article about soft-ware configurable circuits, for use in cell-phones, and the potential versatility that this would provide. Combine that with what we have at this time, with OnStar, and 3G, and a "realistic" tricorder becomes attainable.

Idea - I've felt that in a society with ubiquitous information access, everyone would wear a hat, that would also contain a Monocle and earpiece for receiving data from a personal computing device. Perhaps too Transhuman Space for Federal Space, but certainly an idea that I would use.

'''Shadowjack:''' Good thinking. Normal electronics today are already highly configurable, so extending this seems reasonable. Earpieces are a given; it was already Trek canon that the translator was worn like a hearing aid. Another idea: VR contact lenses! Invisible to an outsider, so it doesn't spoil the look, and it's a non-invasive technology…

'''LordDraqo:''' As long as your crew are already wearing hats, perhaps the earpiece is integral and the visor provides a HUD for the wearer.

'''Shadowjack:''' Glance up, and there's your monitor, running along the inner brim? …That's clever. 


'''jsnead:''' Holodecks: I'd go with holograms mixed in with formatable smart materials that can reshape themselves - also robots (covered in smart materials) for NPCs. Also, floor-based force-fields acting as endless omnidirectional treadmills would work perfectly for simulating distance. 

'''Shadowjack:''' I do like robots as NPCs, that works well! I hadn't thought of that. It also provides an opportunity for extra hand-to-hand combat practice for the Marines. And malleable smart materials aren't setting breaking, I'll have to think about fun uses for those.

But if I have force fields in the holodeck, I have to have them other places. And combined with smart materials and such, we could end up with a smart configurable machine shop, that extrudes and retracts new tools as necessary, or a smart defense station, that warps itself to confine and hold intruders, or a smart bedroom whose bed adapts itself to your activities (;)), or a smart configurable ''ship'', even. Now, these are all ''awesome'', but they're the wrong kind of awesome for this setting riff. I want to keep things more ''physical''.

'''Myth:''' Your malleable materials will be good for uniforms -- let them pad themselves when you're about to enter combat, get fewer broken arms as someone bounces off a corridor wall on their way to the changing room.  Those ubiquitous hats can also morph into combat helmets.  Mostly, it will be absorbing air into micropockets and firming up the fiber structure, nothing too outrageuous.