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Invent the Medical Tricorder, Win $10,000,000
GeneralSecretary writes "If you've ever watched Star Trek and said, 'Hey, I could build that,' now's your chance. Qualcomm and the X PRIZE Foundation have teamed together to offer ten million US dollars to whomever can invent 'a mobile solution that can diagnose patients better than or equal to a panel of board certified physicians.' They call it the Tricorder X PRIZE. Hopefully the Tricorder will join the cell phone, MRI, and tablet computer in the list of Star Trek devices that are now part of our lives."
Can't we start out with just one doctor?
Can I write an app for the iPad that qualifies?
So for only $10 millions dollars you can buy a device that is worth billions. Yeah right.
If you invented a star-trek quality tricorder single-handedly you'd probably end up screwed out of your invention or a billionaire. Also guessing that if a team was making it more than 10 million would be spent on development. Having said that it's good PR and gets people thinking.
Having said that why isn't Qualcomm and X Prize doing their own research? That's what's irritating, like how ever elected official says how we must invest in science / nasa, does nothing about it, and then disappears a decade or so later.
https://market.android.com/details?id=org.hermit.tricorder&feature=search_result
"...you talk like a fag, and your shit's all retarded!"
Have an iPad point to http://easydiagnosis.com/
Medical expert systems already diagnose better than human doctors. What they can't do is figure out the best way to bill your insurance. That requires real intelligence.
Figure out how to create a device that can detect common STDs and determine if the person constantly sneezing, has allergies or ebola, and you will be immensely rich.
I have no idea if sneezing is a symptom of Ebola, I was trying to make a point.
If I were God, wouldn't I protect my churches from acts of me?
... that sounds and looks like a Tricorder or something that actually works?
"and behind this little panel is where we put the Altarian Nanocat for Cat Scans..."
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
That's a rather subjective winning criteria... I've met *many* "panels of doctors" that are no better than an iPad.
"Adventure? Excitement? A Jedi craves not these things."
You'd need...
Broken bones: something that bounces off bone and can detect the time to travel which will determine fractures and breaks. If you're using a flat scanning device, everything needs to bounce off something inside the body, rather than pass through and imprint itself on x-ray paper, etc.
Diseases: Lasers can tell blood type now (I think)...might be you could fine tune it to detect anything from genes to bacteria.
Muscle and ligament tears: same deal as bone I suppose -- would need to reflect off of a certain type of material.
Internal bleeding: scan for pools of blood versus the normal trails of blood (veins, arteries, capillaries)
My only question is why we need 4 different devices (MRI, pad, phone, tricorder)...I'd fully expect this to have solar-rechargeable batteries and a form factor that can fit in my back pocket (which would require a wide-angle "lens" for the probes so it doesn't take you 20 minutes to scan someone). And I darn well better hear the "wee-ooo, wee-ooo" sound without having to put on headphones!
can it set up a subsonic vibration that will resonate with a rock wall and cause it crumble? (That would truly complete my G2.)
When I think of this kind of thing, I get the impression we're trying to solve the wrong problem. Would it make more sense to develop chips and systems that could be embedded _inside_ people? That way they could continuously monitor the person (somehow) and a 'tricorder' would simply extract data out of the systems inside the person
There's one aspect of this competition that, for some reason, is not widely reported: an optional million dollar bonus to this competition.
The bonus gets awarded if the tricorder is designed so that when can't detect the patient's vital, it flashes "He's dead, Jim" on its display.
One day Bill complained to his friend that his elbow really hurt. His friend suggested that he go to a computer at the drug store that can diagnose anything quicker and cheaper than a doctor.
''Simply put in a sample of your urine and the computer will diagnose your problem and tell you what you can do about it. It only costs $10." Bill figured he had nothing to lose, so he filled a jar with a urine sample and went to the drug store. Finding the computer, he poured in the sample and deposited the $10. The computer started making some noise and various lights started flashing. After a brief pause out popped a small slip of paper on which was printed: "You have tennis elbow. Soak your arm in warm water. Avoid heavy lifting. It will be better in two weeks."
Later that evening while thinking how amazing this new technology was and how it would change medical science forever, he began to wonder if this machine could be fooled. He mixed together some tap water, a stool sample from his dog and urine samples from his wife and daughter. To top it off, he masturbated into the concoction. He went back to the drug store, located the machine, poured in the sample and deposited the $10. The computer again made the usual noise and printed out the following message:
"Your tap water is too hard. Get a water softener. Your dog has worms. Get him vitamins. Your daughter is using cocaine. Put her in a rehabilitation clinic. Your wife is pregnant with twin girls. They aren't yours. Get a lawyer. And if you don't stop jerking off, your tennis elbow will never get better."
* Cribbed from some dumb site
Every molecule has a unique absorption frequency. So long as you can identify what absorbption bands are present - very very accurately - you're 99% of the way there. The other 1% requires you to create a catalog of such frequencies by scanning pure samples of pathogens.
A second approach would require nanotech and would be extremely slow. Basically, the idea would be to build a device that mimics the cell's mechanism for reading DNA strands and to maintain some sort of internal state that acted in the manner of a cryptographic hash. Once it has calculated the hash, you'd need some way of reading the value. Not sure how you'd do that part, or how you'd even retrieve the device. But again you're getting a value and hunting through a dictionary to see if it is present. If it is, the pathogen is there. If it isn't, it isn't.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
1. Star Trek had radio telephones, not "cell phones" - they've been around since before WW2: dumb tool leaving the thinking to humans;
2. The Styalator tablet input device was produced in 1957: dumb tool leaving the thinking to humans;
3. The MRI was fairly recent, but PET (and Star Trek didn't distinguish) applied to medical imaging was discussed by Sweet and Brownell in 1953: dumb tool leaving the thinking to humans;
4. The tricorder could be considered a combination of imaging, sensors and an expert system: attempt to replace human judgement with AI.
Unsurprisingly, one of these things is glaringly missing from everyday modern life.
its called the dxbox and has been around for a couple of years. google it. I sure dont see gates turning over rights for a mere $10 million though, that's pocket change.
slashdot troll = you make a compelling argument I do not like the implications of.
I can see figuring out a way to diagnose specific diseases, but all of them? And that's in top of needing to actually invent a handheld device capable of grabbing all that data in the first place.
Liberte, Egalite, Fraternite (TM)
If you've ever watched Star Trek and said, 'Hey, I could build that,' then why the fuck haven't you?
How can I believe you when you tell me what I don't want to hear?
In many parts of the world it already exists. It's called a coin. You just flip it.
Wuddooeyeno? IITYWYBMAD? Like nuts? eclecticallyincorrect.com
Why waste time doing this when you could for for the $20mil xprize... for creating a magic lamp that grants wishes.
Mod me down, my New Earth Global Warmingist friends!
Anyone who successfully builds such a device can make a whole lot more than $10,000,000 with it.
don't forget the sliding door
Of course not. The arm tattoo is a dead giveaway.
How can I believe you when you tell me what I don't want to hear?
Couple some sort of microfluidic sensor with ultrasonic holography and couple that to a online database and you pretty much have a medical tricorder.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Most outsiders think that diagnosis is the most important topic in clinical medicine. However, in most common situations diagnosis is not the problem. It is the treatment that has to be planned and adapted to specific clinical circumstances, patient preferences, available means, etc.
Unfortunately due to lawsuits (wait for it) the only people allowed to use such a device will end up being trained medical doctors and army medics.
It was a tool, albeit a very advanced one. They still had doctors in Star Trek, so that should tell you something. I never got the impression that tricorders had any AI capabilities - though maybe it could use the results of a general test to choose some more specific tests to run.
The prize criteria set the bar WAY too high, IMO.
Skype is too convoluted... Now I'm reverse-engineering the Kyoto Protocol.
I don't believe the tricorders as presented in varies incarnation of Star Trek TV shows/movies are actually capable of diagnosing any ailment; each device is merely a collection of high precision sensors. The physician holding the device is the one that is making the diagnoses base on the data presented by the device.
ELOI, ELOI, LAMA SABACHTHANI!?
And get probably 75% of medical issues diagnosed and cured, as they are mostly nutritional deficiencies... :-)
Not true. Most are pathogenic infectious diseases and accidental injuries. Most in the west are chronic diseases like heart disease and cancer. These both have links in genetics, and yes, even diet (in the case of heart disease).
As is a good night's sleep, friends, family, a connection to that which is beyond us, meaningful work, daily exercise walking and such, and that kind of stuff.
Evidence please? I Know that sleep can have adverse effects on health, but it certainly won't cure "75% of diseases.'
And obviously avoid smoking, excessive alcohol, and obvious environmental toxins at work and play.
Please tell me what an "obvious environmental toxin" is.
The focus on magic bullets is unfortunate.
No. It isn't. It happens to work! Please study the history of modern medicine.
As is a focus on diagnosing things like cancer, heart disease, and diabetes that are mainly signs of vegetable deficiency disease and lack of vitamin D (and to a lesser extent those other issues).
This is a complete lie. Please stop spreading your nonsensical blather on the internet. Heart disease caused by "vegetable deficiency?" Cancer caused by lack of vitamin D? Do you live in the 15th century or something?
Most health rests on the basics. It's true that there are exotic genetic diseases and so on, but what causes the most chronic misery and early death in the industrialized words is these basic nutritional (and sunlight) problems.
Please provide evidence.
You see, what you seem to be promoting is called "holistic medicine." It was a cute practice of the ancient Greeks which sustained itself for many centuries. It was also, unfortunately, mostly wrong. We've made great advances in medicine since then. Please don't attempt to drag us back to the dark ages.
Holy hippie nutrionalist essay, batman.
So for only $10 millions dollars you can buy a device that is worth billions. Yeah right.
What are the rules of the contest? Is there any language that says you can't file patents for your invention -- or parts of it -- before submitting? $10 million would be a nice chunk of seed capital.
Breakfast served all day!
According to most comments to this story, all it takes is that somebody patents a medical tricorder - then it wiil have been bloody obvious to anyone how to build one before the patent application was made.
Fandroids hate facts.
I don't just want it to tell me what's wrong. I want it to show me cool images inside my body like this
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ry3w6fbT7rY&feature=related
it says... organism incomplete.
Hey isn't that already available on the android platform? A developer called Moonblink has created a tricorder like app see [http://code.google.com/p/moonblink/wiki/Tricorder] all it needs is to be linked up to the Instant HeartRate app [http://www.instantheartrate.com/android.jsp], online e-med db [http://www.skyscape.com/estore/ProductDetail.aspx?ProductId=2312] and perhaps a retinal scanner using the flash and maybe something to check ketones in the breath and it's almost complete.
Without the anal probe option. Just because no visit to the doctor would be complete without some sort of humiliation. You can substitute a very very very long boot up time, if you wish, so simulate the waiting room.
No, I guess I couldn't invent it. But I'm willing to bet I could patent it, and then sue whoever does actually invent it later. God Bless America!
"I may disagree with what you say, but I will defend unto the death my right to point at you and laugh." -- Some Guy
Check out my novel.
Its called point of care testing. All of the major laboratory diagnostic companies sell hand held units that can test for a plethora of disease states simply by inserting a cartridge for the test you wish to perform. (For example, Cardiac Troponin testing, chemistry panels...blood gasses...blah blah blah)
Who'd have thought a simple LCD screen with two buttons would have won?
Is Earth is overpopulated?
<Yes> - I recommend euthanization of patient.
<No> - Let's keep it that way by euthanizing the patient.
"a $10 million prize to develop a mobile solution that can diagnose patients better than or equal to a panel of board certified physicians"
Maybe it could also help them with their phrasing. So it only has to diagnose patients who are equal (in some unspecified way) to a panel of board certified physicians? Or, wait, does it have to identify those patients who *are* better than or equal to a panel of board certified physicians? How does one diagnose a patient anyway? I'm so confused!
May I suggest "a $10 million prize to develop a mobile solution that can diagnose medical conditions as well as or better than a panel of board certified physicians"?
In this age of silly patents do I really have to do all the hard work of inventing it or patenting it would be good enough?
I bet the MRI part of the machine will use a S.Q.U.I.D http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SQUID.
Since the prize is trying to get you to make something from a TV show I think the device should be compared against another tv show! Hence I think the money should be awarded if it can diagnose better than House MD
As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a reference to Godwin's Law approaches 1
The payroll for the people you'd need to employ to design this, let alone build it, would be in the millions per annum at a minimum.
Medical experts in each field, electrical engineers, programmers, testers...
How is $10 million meant to be an incentive?
For a real-world example, Space Ship One cost Rutan ( actual Paul Allen ) around $25 million to develop and won then a $1 million prize. Whoopeee.
A flash memory, a microcontroller, a DAC, a speaker and a button. The memory contains a voice recording saying "You're too fat", which is played back when you press the button. It is the correct diagnosis in 95% of the cases.
That is 9.4GiB or ten billion
I see a lot of posters on here are musing on miniaturising X-rays, Ultra-sound and other visual diagnosis aiding equipment, no, no, no! This is completely wrong way to to try to solve this problem.
What you need is an expansion of the lab-on-a-chip idea. For example, it is purported that some dogs can detect types of cancer, so what is required is a device that can detect the chemical signatures of cancer, broken bones, internal bleeding, ulcers etc, etc, etc, maybe something along the lines of HPLC/GC/FTIR/NIR (obviously not exactly this but these detection principles).
Yes, in all seriousness --- come up with a device that can instantly diagnose a bacterial or viral infection (specifically: is this swine flu, bird flu, or a cold) and you'll save a hell of a lot of lives when a pandemic comes round.
Even if it only works with a tiny number of pre-determined pathogens, that would be huge.
Vital Technologies Corporation in Canada (now defunct), created the Mark 1 tricorder. As to a medical scanner, who knows. Probably the same mindset and group-think that lambasted Pons and Fleischman for their failed room temperature fusion(?) experiment, did them in.
Considering that a little box could replace some engineers, I can understand why the medical profession would not like competition that wasn't subject to peer review pressure. It doesn't make any sense to create a box that prescribes Marijauana as the safest alternative to the poisons pushed by Big Pharma, unless the box was created by Big Pharma and pre-programmed to push their poisons.
The Pons and Fleischman experiment appears to be reproducible on a world-wide scale.
The mind conceives, the body achieves, the spirit manifests.
Do I have to invent the original series model with a detachable manual scanner or the TNG unibody type? Just to know which direction to take...
"I'm taking this loop off." - Jack O'Neill
a tricorder required a doctor to make sense of the diagnosis in Star Trek, thus why Dr McCoy was needed
The tricorder made the diagnosis. Dr. McCoy was needed to add snarky comments and general indignation to the diagnosis read from the tricorder.
paintball
"Not true. Most are pathogenic infectious diseases and accidental injuries. Most in the west are chronic diseases like heart disease and cancer. These both have links in genetics, and yes, even diet (in the case of heart disease)."
As Dr. Fuhrman says is the meticulously researched book "Eat to Live", which links to studies to back up what I wrote:
http://books.google.com/books?id=CX8huSU0n8AC
everyone has weak links "genetically". But, in most cases, how you eat and live your life determines whether those weak links are ever stressed and become a problem. Heart disease is a direct result of inflammation and fatty build up, which is directly related primarily to what we eat. Cancer is the failure of the body to police itself as the body is continually getting cancerous cells which it destroys if it is healthy, but it won't be able to do that if you eat junk that promotes cancer while crippling your immune system (and also lack vitamin D).
If you study this, you will see I am more or less right, and that 75% or more of things like infections, heart disease, cancer, and diabetes are directly linked to poor nutrition. It is similar to organic gardening -- if your plants are stressed out from lack of nutrients (including micronutrients) in the soil, they are going to be more sickly and susceptible to disease.
So, you're just repeating "conventional wisdom" which is, in this case, wrong and deadly, sorry. I provided plenty of links to back up my statements, you are doing not much but repeating old and deadly misinformation. But if you want to see how heart disease is a symptom of vegetable deficiency disease, you could look at this:
http://www.ravediet.com/preview.html
Please, for your own sake, try to look into all this and move beyond the knee jerk reaction. People are making trillions of dollars a year off of ignorance and misinformation like you are reiterating. Another video:
"Nutrient Density is the Key to Good health "
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XZGgeGHU1Bs
And:
http://www.diseaseproof.com/archives/diet-myths-the-food-pyramid-of-the-insane.html
Anyway, so my post got modded "Troll". Not suprising as I put my point more strongly than usual. It's still overall right. But it shows a bit of what the real disease is... People do not want to hear the truth, and dismiss it as too outlandish. I used to do the same, and thought it strange to think there was any connection between what I at and how I felt.
Just to show how much you might want to learn on this, from a relatively conservative body (the evidence is stronger than they say, but even they admit to evidence):
"Vitamin D and Cancer Prevention: Strengths and Limits of the Evidence"
http://www.cancer.gov/cancertopics/factsheet/prevention/vitamin-D
See also:
http://www.vitamindcouncil.org/cancerMain.shtml
But you just dismissed that without looking into it. The fact is, for every melanoma (skin cancer) dermatologists have prevented by telling people to stay out of the sun, they may have caused thirty others from vitamin D deficiency.
On the history of medicine, I cited the Flexner Report which was a big place US medicine took a wrong turn a century ago. Sure, the guy who suggested doctors should wash their hands was essentially beaten to death for it.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ignaz_Semmelweis
And the guy who wanted to run anti-smoking ads in 1927 was fired for it, and then per
A 21st century issue: the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity.
The problem with this sort of contest is not the equipment or the engineers creating the hardware and software.
The problem is doctors. Doctors, as a rule, when it comes to testing their medical knowledge are fucking liars.
When you show 10 doctors the same MRI, they'll almost invariably give you 10 different answers. If you're EXTREMELY lucky, one of them will speak up and say 'I dont know', but what you're more likely to get is all 10 of them making up bullshit if they can't see a problem.
The end result is that the engineers creating the equipment don't have a freaking chance of getting a better diagnosis, or even close to being accurate because the doctors being used as a basis to train the software in the equipment are giving back false information. The testing equipment gets back different answers for what it sees as the same result, so no one can pick the proper cues for it to make a diagnosis.
The biggest problem with designing and winning this contest is not building the equipment and writing the software, we've probably already done it. The problem is engineering the training program to deal with doctors who won't say 'I dont know' during the training process (training the equipment, not the doctor).
Find enough HONEST doctors who are willing to admit when they don't know, can't tell or are unsure, and building the tricorder will be a cake walk.
If you want help finding honest doctors, tell them the data you are giving them to evaluate is from one of their family members and watch their reaction. Its freaking amazing watching how doctors change their attitude when diagnosing someone/something they care about versus a random stranger.
I was lucky enough to marry a doctor, as a geek I've learned two things about medicine. Nothing practiced in a hospital setting should be considered science. At best, its art, but mostly its a bunch of guesses that eventually lead them in the right direction most of the time. And more importantly, Doctors aren't nearly as smart as you'd think. Most of them, are in fact, rather stupid, the common population on the other hand has been conditioned over time to assume that all the years of school and internships/residencies that doctors goes through means they really know what they are doing.
Don't kid yourself, they really don't. Its more along the lines of not having any other options so they stuck it out. Watching my wife go through the schooling and all the other crap that goes with becoming a practicing doctor I watched a lot of other med students join the professional world ... I learned that if I can still think well enough to consider going to the doctor, I should avoid the doctor at all costs.
Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
It's called a handgun. Diagnosis? Lead Poisoning. Every time.
If it runs linux i'm sold. Fortunately LCARS is not anywhere near being our defacto gui interface. I don't want to live in a purple, tan, and orange hell.
Why doesn't someone build a car tricorder first? Analyzing engine vibrations, voltages and sniffing the CAN bus is a lot simpler and more practical.