To coincide with the release of Star Trek: The Next Generation on Blu-ray, Mimoco turned four of the franchise's most iconic characters -- Captain Kirk and Mr. Spock from the Original Series, as well as Captain Picard and Lieutenant Commander Data from TNG -- into Mimobot USB flash drives. Though some lucky Trekkie probably got the whole collection from Santa this holiday (they went on sale back in November 2012), we just got a hold of a 8GB Spock one while wandering the show floor at CES so we warped it back to our computer to give the device a try.
Each of the Star Trek Mimobot is physically shaped and posed like the actual character. In our case, Mr. Spock the USB drive is in a blue Starfleet uniform with a communication badge, and his hand doing the Vulcan salute. His heels actually light up when he is plugged into a computer.
Like all Mimobots, the Star Trek ones are preloaded with all sorts of goodies like desktop icons in the shape of the Enterprise-D, and classic one-liners from these characters, but it takes a bit of installation to set it all up on the computer. We were eager to find out what lines our Mimobot would recite so the first thing we installed (after unzipping the content) was the mimoByte Sound Software. It turns out every time you plug in and remove the USB drive, Mr. Spock would say random lines like "Fascinating" and "Sensors read no life forms." It can be a bit addictive sticking and removing the flash drive just to see what else the Mimobot will say. Just make sure your speakers are on, or simply restart your computer if the lines suddenly stopped playing.
You can also specify exactly which desktop icon you want to substitute for the Star Trek ones. For example, we only used the Enterprise-D to replace the My Computer icon, but left the Recycling Bin as is. By default, the icon for the removable drive corresponds to the Mimobot character, but you can change the icon to any of the other Star Trek characters in the lineup as they are all included on the device.
There is also a Star Trek Mimory app on the thumb drive that mimics the computer interface on TNG. Open it and you'll find exclusive videos from the TNG Blu-ray boxset featuring Brent Spiner and Patrick Stewart, wallpapers for your desktop, vintage toy commercials, and even digital copies of Star Trek comics. The app makes all the beeps and blops you've come to love from the legendary series, sounds that, to be honest, we were hoping the mimoByte Sound Software would include.
As Trekkies, even we have to admit that these Mimobots are far from perfect: our 8GB model has just over 7GB of actual free space (all the cool Star Trek content takes up 346MB), its curvy body makes it awkward to use in tight-fitting USB slots, and is pricey for the capacity ($20 for 8GB). But then again who buys a Mimobot based on logic? As far as we're concerned, these Star Trek Mimobots are worth every penny.
