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$10M Tricorder X PRIZE Kicks off
Back in May, we heard about Qualcomm's plans to hammer out details for an X PRIZE competition to invent a Star Trek-style tricorder. Now, reader Sven-Erik sends word that the requirements have been finalized and the competition has launched.
"As envisioned for this competition, the device will be a tool capable of capturing key health metrics and diagnosing a set of 15 diseases. Metrics for health could include such elements as blood pressure, respiratory rate, and temperature. Ultimately, this tool will collect large volumes of data from ongoing measurement of health states through a combination of wireless sensors, imaging technologies, and portable, non-invasive laboratory replacements. Given that each team will take its own approach to design and functionality, the device's physical appearance and functionality may vary immensely from team to team. Indeed, the only stated limit on form is that the mass of its components together must be no greater than five pounds."
You start it up and it prints: "It's Lupus"
i'm building an ER in a zeppelin.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pound_(mass)
No, it can't go "ping". That's one of the requirements for the X-Prize for the Timey-Wimey detector: goes "ping" when there's stuff.
Events like this are really great, it really spurs innovation.
It encourages people to think outside the box and build something normally only researched if there's great market value. If companies are making fair change with current products, they'll milk research till later and slowly release tech to keep the market at the right level of saturation.
The fact that a reward to cover research expenses and advance technology like that is just out there is great. It might not be perfect, whatever is developed, but it's a start in a good direction. It might not be a mass marketed product, the original anyway, but that 10 mill will at least get the ball rolling.
Dammit Jim! I'm a doctor, not a venture capitalist!
Have gnu, will travel.
*medical* tricoder they mean.
But, it diagnoses everyone who's ever even HEARD of a "tricorder" with A.D.D.
If telephones are outlawed, then only outlaws will have telephones.
Wikipedia's article on Noninvasive glucose monitor:
And that's just one parameter. A useful tricorder would cost billions of dollars to make, not just $10 million.
Asking people what's wrong with them isn't exactly an unbiased way of finding out what's really wrong with them. Their knowledge is full of errors (as it's reliant upon their memory, which is severely flawed), and they may not even feel things that are wrong with them. We need a way of doing a star trek-style scan of them to find out what's really wrong with them, instead of wasting time with their hypochondriacal problems.
As for taking someone's weight, you really think that asking people what they weigh is an accurate way of getting that information? I guess surgical centers should just take out their high-precision scales (used to get the patient weight right before surgery so the anesthesiologist can calculate the correct dosage so they don't kill the patient), and just ask the people what they weigh instead!! If a patient's home scale is off by 10%, or they don't want to admit to themselves that they're really 200 pounds and instead say they're 160, that'll be OK, right?
Even family medical history isn't very good data. A patient may be adopted, or a patient may not realize that the person who he believes is his father actually isn't (studies have shown that something like 10-15% of people were fathered by someone else; i.e., the mother had an affair and never told anyone). So the patient might be worried because all his relatives on his "father's" side have some condition and thinks he'll have it too, but he's actually not biologically related.
With semiconductor-based DNA scanning right over the horizon, yes, we should be working to build an MRI, centrifuge, and DNA lab into a five-pound box, and not waste time trying to make an accurate diagnosis with someone saying "my leg hurts!".