The X PRIZE Foundation and Qualcomm are partnering to try to make the Tricorder — Star Trek’s famous health-diagnosing gadget — a reality. They are offering up $US10 million in purse money. This may be the most practically useful X PRIZE yet.
The gadget that takes the X Prize must enable a person to accurately diagnose themselves (without going to a doctor or hospital) and it has to be “easy and fun to use”. This is one piece of sci-fi that I can’t wait to have as a reality. Get to it, geeks!
Image: The RPF forums
Lillee
Wednesday, January 11, 2012 at 9:00 AMIt’s about time
Sean
Wednesday, January 11, 2012 at 9:12 AMEven a star trek medical tricorder requres a doctor to interpret the readings.
Jaezass
Wednesday, January 11, 2012 at 9:15 AMGot a feeling it will be awhile before they can read an EEG or Cardio Scan, let alone getting some idea of how your bodies metabolism is doing. Good luck to em tho, seems like something we all could use in the bathroom cabinet!
TSH
Wednesday, January 11, 2012 at 11:36 AMUnless the thing can do some sort of internal scans (which the Star Trek tricorder evidently can), the sort of information you can glean from external measurements is waaay too vague to make any accurate diagnosis.
A tricorder can identify fractured bones, internal bleeding and the whole gamut (AFAIK) of known illnesses. Somehow I don’t think we’re quite there yet.
Just This Guy ...
Wednesday, January 11, 2012 at 2:27 PMWell duh.
That’s the reason for the whole X Prize thing.
So we can, you know, get there.. Eventually.
Got to start somewhere.
Michael
Wednesday, January 11, 2012 at 3:18 PMOne would think that even in star trek land, the tricorder evolved over time with features, but the end product will be awesome! Can’t wait for the EMH though.
Franz
Wednesday, January 11, 2012 at 8:29 PMScreen that potential girlfriend for diseases lol.