Star Trek was the inspiration for Amazon Echo and Google search

Star Trek has brought more to this world than just great entertainment; it brought us Amazon Echo and Google search.

Star Trek has inspired people to become engineers, pilots, astronauts, artists, and writers. In the past fifty-seven years, it has spawned twelve series, thirteen movies, countless board games, role-playing games, war games, comic books, novels, and collectibles. But it has also gone outside the world of entertainment to become an inspiration for some of our best and most used technology today.

And not surprisingly, one of the franchise’s creations has been the jumping off point for both Google’s search algorithm and the Amazon Echo. The computer from The Original Series was behind Trek fan Amit Singhal’s design of the most popular search engine today. Google has parlayed that into its own home assistant—Google Nest. But the technology didn’t stop there.

Another Star Trek computer helped the Amazon Echo get its start

According to The Objective Standard, the computer from Star Trek: The Next Generation, which was conversational and could interact with people, was the inspiration for the Amazon Echo and the Alexa interface.

Toni Reid oversaw the development of the Echo and the interface with Alexa and told the Wall Street Journal that Amazon wanted to create a computer in a cloud controlled entirely by voice.

"“The original inspiration for the Amazon Echo was the Star Trek computer. We wanted to create a computer in the cloud controlled entirely by voice. It’s easy to converse with in a natural way, and people can ask it questions and request it do and find things for them.”"

Star Trek has helped bring to life many more technological advances, and the franchise will, undoubtedly, be the impetus behind many more, although, it’s doubtful we’ll ever see a fully-functioning transporter no matter how cool it would be. But with the way new series are coming up with new features, we can look forward to an even more technologically advanced future.