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First Prototype of a Working Tricorder Unveiled At SXSW

Posted by samzenpus on from the scan-me dept.

the_newsbeagle writes The $10 million Tricorder X-prize is getting to the "put up or shut up" stage: The 10 finalists must turn in their working devices on June 1st for consumer testing. At SXSW last week, the finalist team Cloud DX showed off its prototype, which includes a wearable collar, a base station, a blood-testing stick, and a scanning wand. From the article: "The XPrize is partnering with the medical center at the University of California, San Diego on that consumer testing, since it requires recruiting more than 400 people with a variety of medical conditions. Grant Campany, director of the Tricorder XPrize, said he’s looking forward to getting those devices into real patients hands. 'This will be a practical demonstration of what the future of medicine will be like,' said Campany at that same SXSW talk, 'so we can scale it up after competition.'"

13 of 61 comments (clear)

  1. Well there was another tricorder by bobstreo · · Score: 3, Insightful

    But CBS ordered it removed from the app store:

    http://www.geek.com/mobile/cbs...

  2. easy by frovingslosh · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Anyone can build a working Tricorder as long as they get to define what a Tricorder is. In this case it sounds like people are taking any medical technology and slapping the Tricorder name on it. I don't remember the Trek Tricorder including a wearable collar (I assume as opposed to the other type of collar). I might as well call an app that interacts with a Bluetooth wrist strap a Tricorder.

    --
    I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
    1. Re:easy by Em+Adespoton · · Score: 2

      Of course, I don't think any of us would want to be exposed to a working Tricorder -- they worked by bombarding the subject with EM radiation, including a bunch in the "radioactive" spectrum. In real life, the thing was likely to diagnose you as being in the early stages of cancer due to the tricorder itself.

      So a few extra pieces to replace some of the EM stuff are welcome in my book, even if it's not quite as simple to use.

    2. Re:easy by Verdatum · · Score: 4, Informative

      The X-Prize competition decides what a Tricorder is. Their guidelines are here: http://tricorder.xprize.org/si...

    3. Re:easy by ceoyoyo · · Score: 2

      Like a flashlight! Oh, you say it was supposed to emit x-rays as well? So like a CRT then.

    4. Re:easy by Wraithlyn · · Score: 4, Informative

      The contest requirements are very specific on the device's testing capabilities, here they are:

      The Core Set (Qualifying requires 5/13, Final Round requires all 13):
      1. Anemia
      2. Urinary tract infection, lower
      3. Diabetes
      4. Atrial fibrillation
      5. Stroke
      6. Sleep apnea, obstructive
      7. Tuberculosis
      8. Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD)
      9. Pneumonia
      10. Otitis ("ear infection")
      11. Leukocytosis
      12. Hepatitis A
      13. Absence of Core Conditions

      The Elective Set (Qualifying requires 1, Final Round requires 3):
      1. Pertussis (Whooping Cough)
      2. Hypertension
      3. Mononucleosis
      4. Allergens (airborne)
      5. Hypothyroidism/hyperthyroidism
      6. Food-borne illness
      7. Shingles
      8. Melanoma
      9. Strep throat
      10. Cholesterol Screen
      11. HIV Screen
      12. Osteoporosis

      The Vital Signs Set (Qualifying requires 3, Final Round requires all 5):
      1. Blood pressure
      2. Electrocardiography (heart rate/variability)
      3. Body temperature
      4. Respiratory rate
      5. Oxygen Saturation

      --
      "Mind, as manifested by the capacity to make choices, is to some extent present in every electron." -Freeman Dyson
    5. Re:easy by RabidReindeer · · Score: 3, Informative

      Of course, I don't think any of us would want to be exposed to a working Tricorder -- they worked by bombarding the subject with EM radiation, including a bunch in the "radioactive" spectrum. In real life, the thing was likely to diagnose you as being in the early stages of cancer due to the tricorder itself..

      Did they? I missed that episode.

      I always thought that the ideal tricorder could accept a broad spectrum of natural radiations in 3 dimensions and use that to construct a bio-chemical-mechanical model of the subject. Thus the name "tricorder" being equally used for both medical purposes (medical tricorder) and general exploration (for example, Spock's tricorder).

      Think about it. Every nanosecond we are being constantly bombarded by radio waves from Jupiter, the Sun, and the stars, cosmic rays, neutrinos, natural radioactivity from the ground we stand on and the air we breathe, light at various frequencies, including UV and IR, sound waves of all frequencies and that's not even factoring in man-made stuff like WKRP AM/FM, the local police/fire/rescue/transportation/etc and business channels or cell phones. Some of that stuff goes straight through, some reflects and/or refracts, some is absorbed selectively by various tissues, some is blocked. All you need is sensors, a computer powerful enough to correlate it, and software that can reduce it to usable data.

    6. Re:easy by SuperKendall · · Score: 2

      And this device will be able to test for these conditions in a few seconds? That would be really cool, since current tests for some of these take a day or more.

      How did you think Spock learned to stand so still?

      --
      "There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
  3. I once glued three woodwind instruments together by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    I called it a tricorder

  4. Re:Consent? by rossdee · · Score: 2

    "Yeah, and are these patients consenting to this?"

    I'd guess they'd have to sign a waiver..

    "And what does the TOS say about who owns the data?"

    Is that Terms Of Service, or The Original Series (since we are talking Star Trek)

    Anyway there already exist those wheeled 'nurse on a stick' machines that measure vitals, I am not sure how much this tricorder adds to the diagnostics.
    What is needed is connectivity between those machines and the software that does the charting.

  5. Bone knives and bear skins by bobbied · · Score: 2

    ... you're asking me to work with equipment which is hardly very far ahead of stone knives and bearskins.

    I am endeavoring, ma'am, to construct a mnemonic memory circuit using stone knives and bear skins....

    --
    "File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
  6. Re:Yeah But... by mrbester · · Score: 2

    They're doctors, dammit, not geologists...

    --
    "Wait. Something's happening. It's opening up! My God, it's full of apricots!"
  7. Re:Consent? by ceoyoyo · · Score: 3

    You know that's how virtually all large clinical trials are done, right? There are lots of regulations, including international conventions, governing medical research. Subjects have to provide informed consent, and part of the "informed" part involves specifying what the data is going to be used for. If it weren't being done through a university's clinical research program, a la Facebook, you'd have a point.