This week, The Drill Down team takes a look at April Fools’ Day on the web, Apple‘s upcoming revolutionary TV vs. existing console-based options, and further bad times for Yahoo, as Facebook strikes back, but first, this week’s hot tech headlines.

Instagram comes to Android, details on Sony‘s next-generation Playstation, Ashton Kutcher to play Steve Jobs, Apple addresses worker violations at Foxconn, an iPhone stalker app raises privacy concerns on Facebook, Amazon wins sales tax fight in Colorado, Google to sell tablets online, Google tests augmented reality goggles, and OMGPop‘s CEO gets catty.

It’s the moment we’ve all been waiting for ever since we heard Captain Sulu give the order to “Target that explosion and fire” in 1991’s Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country. Paramount Pictures announced today, April 1, 2012, a new Star Trek movie entitled Excelsior. The spin-off film will see George Takei return as Captain Hikaru Sulu to the bridge of the starship U.S.S. Excelsior.

Those involved with the film are keeping a tight lid on plot details, but Geeks of Doom’s sources have confirmed exclusively to us that the film will find Sulu and crew back to cataloguing gaseous planetary anomalies in the Beta Quadrant. Whether Sulu will give the command to fly the ship apart is still unknown, but with a movie like this, you can be sure that Sulu will give his catchphrase order of “Shields up!”

It’s a Presidential election year here in the United States, so the campaigns are underway. But in the geek world, which characters would be running for election this year?

Kevin David Anderson, author of Night Of The Living Trekkies, has posted some campaign adverts to Facebook that feature some really hot tickets so far:

– Darth Vader and Lord Voldemort
– George Takei and Bruce Campbell
– Cybermen and Borg

Paramount Pictures participated today in the 123rd Rose Parade in California with a float celebrating some of their most memorable franchises, like Star Trek, Transformers, and Grease.

The 55-foot-long float, called “Paramount Pictures … 100 Years Of Movie Magic,” marked Paramount’s first time in the annual parade and contained replicas of Star Trek‘s famed starship, the USS Enterprise; the Autobot Bumblebee from Transformers; and Greased Lightning, the car from Grease, as well as other symbols of Paramount’s past.

Star Trek: TOS: Season 1
Blu-ray Edition
Starring William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy, DeForest Kelley, James Doohan, Nichelle Nichols, George Takei
Paramount Home Entertainment
Release Date: April 28, 2009

The original Star Trek consisted of three seasons on television in the 1960s and starred William Shatner as Captain James T. Kirk and Leonard Nimoy as his first officer, Mr. Spock. Kirk and his crew of the USS Enterprise were the astronauts of our future, zipping around in a starship, exploring strange new worlds — and find them, they did. Back in the 1960s, whether you liked science fiction or not, every television viewer was drawn to the series by the simple fact that it was in color, a trait not too common at the time. While techicolor drew in audiences, it was the unique storylines and non-traditional methods that have kept the franchise alive for over 40 years.

This Blu-ray edition of Star Trek: The Original Series: Season 1 contains digitally remastered versions of all 29 episodes of first season of the original series, which not only cleans up a lot of scratches and scuffs from the original reels, but also looks amazing in high definition. Since the original special effects are outdated in comparison to what’s possible today — even though at the time they were innovative — the episodes have all been enhanced to include alternate, upgraded graphics and special effects. While the themes of Star Trek have transcended generations, this high definition release has an updated look which will attract modern-day audiences without compromising its nostalgia appeal for long-time viewers.