Klingon High Tech

Sometimes the world seems so strange that you have to step back and wonder. From what I can tell, there is an upsurge of high tech for … wait for it … Klingon aficionados.

We’ll skip the merely obvious, such as screen savers and war cruiser simulators. Via GeekNews.net, anti-virus application vendor Sophos has a Klingon version of its product, with “[f]ree virus, spyware, and adware scan for members of the Klingon empire.” What does it do on finding a virus? Decapitate it with a jey’naS?

You can get a Klingon keyboard. Or course, Klingons don’t type commands into a computer. They order and the machine obeys. (Which raises the question: Is Chuck Norris a Klingon?) There’s a Klingon clock app for Linux or Windows.

Using such products would suggest that you should know Klingon. If you want to learn the language so you can use these products, you can always point a browser to the Klingon Language Institute. Or you could rough it with an iPhone English-Klingon dictionary app.

A cartoonist even came up with the first Klingon Turing Test. And you can even learn Klingon programming practices. (”Specs are for the weak and timid.”)

Ultimately, I know that Klingon still can’t be mainstream in high tech. Word’s spell checker doesn’t recognize it. But I still wish the companies producing these products luck, even the ones that released something recently to piggy back on the new Star Trek movie. At least they are trading on whim and fun rather than promising the world with the latest buzzword, like cloud computing. Everyone knows that Klingons don’t need no stinkin’ fluffy clouds.

And if you know of a Klingon tech product that is on the unusual side (I’m having a hard time believing that I’m writing these words), let me know and I’ll start a list at the end of this post. (An honorable non-tech mention has to go to MrKlingon.org, where you can get an automated translation of Biblical verse or get an introduction to ancient Klingon mathematics.)