When Star Trek’s Captain Picard presses his communicator badge, he can instantly speak with any member of his crew — even when they’ve beamed down to a planet or a nearby spaceship. A company called ...

Star Trek fans and hackers have a lot of overlap, to the surprise of no one. In fact, Star Trek has been inspiring everyone from tech tinkerers to real-life astronauts since it debuted in the 1960s.

Apple has been researching how to make a small, wearable loudspeaker that would use beamformed audio to make it clearly audible to the wearer, yet not disturb anyone else. Apple calls a newly-granted ...