The best bit is the anecdote about LCARS in Star Trek: The Next Generation. It was all due to a budget shortfall:<p>&quot;Star Trek also may have helped create the entire image-under-glass paradigm that governs our digital world. The interface, known as LCARS, is cool-looking. It’s distinctive. And it’s actually the result of a budget shortfall.<p>Star Trek: The Next Generation didn’t have as much money for set design as did the original series, which had panels wired with jewels and glowing buttons. Instead, they cut out film and put them over glass panes.&quot;<p>It&#x27;s usually constraints, not the lack of them, that give birth to true innovation.