
The Race To Build A Star Trek-Worthy Medical Tricorder - sdoering
http://www.fastcoexist.com/1679101/the-race-to-build-a-star-trek-worthy-medical-tricorder
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bh42222
The non-invasive restriction seems bad to me. Or is it there to get around
government crated problems, which I could agree with?

I think the medical tricoder is completely non-invasive on TV, because it's a
great way to create the fantasy of the future. As in, the doctor does not even
need to touch you!

In the real world labs on chips have come quite far and could go even further.
A scratch of skin or tiny droplet of blood could provide an incredible amount
of information about your health.

So let's not artificially restrict what the device might be capable of,
without good reason.

In fact I think the lab on chip type of analysis is the most interesting part.
Measuring pulse, blood pressure, and respiration rate all seem pretty easily
achievable.

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lukeschlather
People without medical training shouldn't be using a diagnostic tool that
draws blood. Especially if there hasn't been several third-party (read:
government) analyses showing that the tool sterilizes itself properly, even
when not used by a skilled technician.

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amalcon
It takes only a small amount of training to safely use a blood glucose meter,
which is a diagnostic tool that draws blood.

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gte910h
...And is a great vector for hepatitis infection:

[http://diabetes.webmd.com/news/20111025/panel-recommends-
hep...](http://diabetes.webmd.com/news/20111025/panel-recommends-hepatitis-b-
vaccine-for-diabetes-patients)

I'm for a "no blood" tool at first at least. BGMs are cheap and prevalent.

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martinkallstrom
If anyone is looking to hire in this area I have a friend who wrote his
doctoral thesis on this subject. His research was focused on what diagnosis
that can be established by shining infrared light on the skin and filming
blood vessels up to one centimeter into the skin. I was at his thesis
presentation and he literally referred to the Star Trek tricorder.

His thesis is on Amazon: [http://www.amazon.com/PHOTON-PROPAGATION-TISSUE-
BIOLOGICAL-F...](http://www.amazon.com/PHOTON-PROPAGATION-TISSUE-BIOLOGICAL-
FLUIDS/dp/3639190130)

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qdog
This sounds interesting at first (I thought they must have some hardware kit
for you), but I'm thinking 10 million isn't very much money for a 'tricorder'
independently developed. If they were offering up some new qualcomm sensors or
whatever, ok, but this just sounds like wishful thinking.

Probably be better if they did a Tricorder YC and gave a bunch of different
teams a few thousand bucks to try and develop pieces of technology for
something like this. Just a heart rate monitor for a phone would be amazing,
and I mean one you could just point at someone, not a separate device. Extra
wires just wouldn't make it a tricorder imho ;)

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ashbrahma
The competition page: <http://www.qualcommtricorderxprize.org/>

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nkassis
This is pretty cool but I have a feeling this might not be a great idea in the
hands of hypochondriacs. Nonetheless as a Trekk{ie,er} I want one now ;p

Is anyone working on non medical tricoder type devices? It would be cool to
have a gadget for my phone that gives me temperature, pressure, humidity and
other things like that. It could potentially predict bad weather for climbers
etc.

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pixie_
Remember that AT&T commerical that highlighted all the future stuff AT&T would
do, but they never did, but eventually happened anyways. That's what this
Scanadu promo video reminds me of. Check out their homepage too, it's all
investors, board members, advisers, business people, and only a handful of
engineers.

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TobbenTM
Site broken in Opera.

