It always seemed difficult for the newspaper where I used to work, The Garden Island on the rural Hawaiian island of Kauai, to hire reporters. If someone left, it could take months before we hired a replacement, if we ever did. So, last Thursday, I was happy to see that the paper appeared to have hired two new journalists--even if they seemed a little off. In a spacious studio overlooking a tropical beach, James, a middle-aged Asian man who appears to be unable to blink, and Rose, a younger redhead who struggles to pronounce words like "Hanalei" and "TV," presented their first news broadcast, over pulsing music that reminds me of the Challengers score. There is something deeply off-putting about their performance: James' hands can't stop vibrating.

Hollywood's Captain Kirk, 90-year-old William Shatner, blasted into space Wednesday in a convergence of science fiction and science reality, reaching the final frontier aboard a ship built by Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin company. The "Star Trek" actor and three fellow passengers hurtled to an altitude of 66.5 miles over the West Texas desert in the fully automated capsule, then safely parachuted back to Earth. The flight lasted just over 10 minutes. "What you have given me is the most profound experience," an exhilarated Shatner told Bezos after climbing out the hatch, the words spilling from him in a soliloquy almost as long as the flight. "I hope I never recover from this. I hope that I can maintain what I feel now. I don't want to lose it."

Hollywood's Captain Kirk, 90-year-old William Shatner, blasted into space Wednesday in a convergence of science fiction and science reality, reaching the final frontier aboard a ship built by Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin company. The "Star Trek" hero and three fellow passengers hurtled to an estimated 66 miles (106 kilometers) over the West Texas desert in the fully automated capsule, then safely parachuted back to Earth in a flight that lasted just over 10 minutes. ""You have done something," an exhilarated Shatner told Bezos as he emerged from the capsule, the words spilling from him in a torrent. "What you have given me is the most profound experience." He added: "I hope I never recover from this." He said that going from the blue sky to the blackness of space was a moving experience that made him wonder, "Is that the way death is?" Shatner became the oldest person in space, eclipsing the previous record -- set by a passenger on a similar jaunt on a Bezos spaceship in July -- by eight years. The flight included about three minutes of weightlessness and a view of the curvature of the Earth. Sci-fi fans reveled in the opportunity to see the man best known as the stalwart Capt. James T. Kirk of the starship Enterprise boldly go where no star of American TV has gone before. "This is a pinch-me moment for all of us to see Capt.

VAN HORN, Texas (AP) -- Hollywood's Captain Kirk, 90-year-old William Shatner, blasted into space Wednesday in a convergence of science fiction and science reality, reaching the final frontier aboard a ship built by Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin company. The "Star Trek" hero and three fellow passengers hurtled to an estimated 66 miles (106 kilometers) over the West Texas desert in the fully automated capsule, then safely parachuted back to Earth in a flight that lasted just over 10 minutes. "You have done something," an exhilarated Shatner told Bezos as he emerged from the capsule, the words spilling from him in a torrent. "What you have given me is the most profound experience." He added: "I hope I never recover from this."

Hollywood's Captain Kirk, 90-year-old William Shatner, blasted into space Wednesday in a convergence of science fiction and science reality, reaching the final frontier on board a ship built by Jeff Bezos's Blue Origin company. The Star Trek hero became the oldest person to ride a rocket, eclipsing the previous record -- set by a passenger on a similar jaunt on a Bezos spaceship in July -- by eight years. Dressed in a royal blue flight suit, Shatner joined three fellow passengers, four to five decades younger, on board the fully automated capsule that took off from remote West Texas for an up-and-down flight scheduled to last just 10 minutes or so. The spaceship aimed for an altitude of 106 kilometres (66 miles), at the fringes of space, after which the capsule was set to parachute back to the desert floor. Sci-fi fans revelled in the opportunity to see the man best known as the stalwart Captain James T Kirk of the starship Enterprise boldly go where no star of American TV has gone before.

You could see it answered in an interactive conversation powered by artificial intelligence (AI) and using video responses that Shatner prerecorded. This two-way conversational video platform was developed by StoryFile, and the company recently introduced the « conversation » with Shatner on its website as a way to commemorate the actor's 90th birthday this past spring. In the video, a jovial-looking Shatner sits in a room awaiting users' questions about his life and career, which can be posed as audio or text. Once Shatner is asked a question, the system swiftly selects an appropriate answer from the prerecorded options, providing the response in real time. The company recorded Shatner's answers in front of a greenscreen at StoryFile's studio in Los Angeles over four days; questions covered various topics, including details of his life story, according to a behind-the-scenes video that StoryFile shared March 22 on Vimeo.

You could see it answered in an interactive conversation powered by artificial intelligence (AI) and using video responses that Shatner prerecorded. This two-way conversational video platform was developed by StoryFile, and the company recently introduced the "conversation" with Shatner on its website as a way to commemorate the actor's 90th birthday this past spring. In the video, a jovial-looking Shatner sits in a room awaiting users' questions about his life and career, which can be posed as audio or text. Once Shatner is asked a question, the system swiftly selects an appropriate answer from the prerecorded options, providing the response in real time. The company recorded Shatner's answers in front of a greenscreen at StoryFile's studio in Los Angeles over four days; questions covered various topics, including details of his life story, according to a behind-the-scenes video that StoryFile shared March 22 on Vimeo.

Shatner is a celebrity, which means that he has outsized influence. That he would use his platform to lend credibility to such sites, spreading them to 2.5 million followers, could have terrible consequences. Shatner has made his support of vaccination very clear, but NaturalNews has tons of "articles" demonizing vaccinations--an example is a video titled "Vaccine Cannibalism Exposed." But there's an upside: The real-time tweeting of his thought process provides a helpful window into the practices of everyday intelligent people trying to figure out the truth. They Google, they find a few articles that confirm their biases, and they're done. No matter that the articles are on websites that spread virulent misinformation.

We get the science fiction we need at the time we need it. When "Star Trek" premiered on Sept. 8, 1966, the United States was escalating its involvement in the Vietnam War while also reckoning with the civil rights movement -- not to mention waging a cold war with the Soviet Union that seemed always on the verge of heating up. Right along with that tumult was the beacon of scientific hope that was NASA's space program, which in turn stoked the passion of an America obsessed with tomorrow. World's fairs were in the business of showing us the cars, kitchens and cities of tomorrow. Writer-producer Gene Roddenberry channeled those twin poles of the human condition -- strife and hope -- into "Star Trek," the show he pitched to NBC as " 'Wagon Train' to the stars."

"Who was your favorite captain?" When this question was posed by a Comic-Con attendee to the members of the The 50th anniversary "Star Trek" panel -- with Capt. James Tiberius Kirk himself seated at the head of the table onstage in Hall H -- there was only one way for the panelists to answer. One among multiple celebrations around the seminal series, the panel brought together representatives from all five iterations of the television show: William Shatner (Captain Kirk), Brent Spiner (the android Data from "Star Trek: The Next Generation"), Michael Dorn (the Klingon Worf from "The Next Generation," and also holding it down for "Deep Space Nine"), Jeri Ryan (Seven of Nine from "Star Trek: Voyager") and Scott Bakula (Capt. "Is anyone legitimately not going to say Kirk," asked Ryan with a laugh when the favorite captain question emerged.