SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
Rypinski is the leader of Aezon, one of the teams participating in the Qualcomm Tricorder XPrize. The competition launched in 2012, when the XPrize Foundation and U.S. chipmaker Qualcomm challenged innovators from around the world to develop a portable, consumer-friendly device capable of diagnosing a comprehensive set of medical conditions. More than 300 teams registered, and after a series of reviews, the organizers selected 10 finalists, announced last August.
This month, the final phase of the competition starts. Each finalist team was expected to deliver 30 working prototypes, which will now undergo a battery of tests with real patients. Prizes totaling US $10 million will go to the winner and two runners-up, to be announced early next year, when "Star Trek" will be celebrating its 50th anniversary.
...
Their tricorders won't be all-powerful portable scanners like those in "Star Trek," but they still must demonstrate some impressive capabilities. They'll have to diagnose 13 medical conditions, including anemia, diabetes, hepatitis A, leukocytosis, pneumonia, stroke, tuberculosis, and urinary tract infections. In addition, teams choose three additional conditions from a list that includes food-borne illness, melanoma, osteoporosis, whooping cough, shingles, mononucleosis, strep throat, and HIV. And their systems must be able to monitor vital signs like temperature, blood pressure and oxygen saturation, heart rate, and respiratory rate—not only in real time but for periods of several days as well.
Smartphones already seem pretty close to tricorders.
Original Submission
(Score: 2) by VLM on Wednesday July 08 2015, @11:40AM
I'd be pleased enough with mobile, like the size of a blood pressure test station at a drug store. Maybe they should start there first.
On second thought, I'll one up this, Walmart has these dumpy "you got no medical insurance so see our nurse" wanna be clinics and this wish list far exceeds what they're capable of, so maybe they should start with a shipping container sized space and maybe 5 rotating nurses.
Note that this even exceeds most urgent care facilities. Last time I had pneumonia they sent me out of urgent care across the hospital to radiology to get xrayed. Also I don't think the hospital urgent care even has their own lab, so good luck with even simple blood tests.
Also I'm more than a little puzzled why Qualcomm would be involved. This smells like total defense contractor boondoggle in the making. If it were possible to put an entire hospital in the back of a humvee we'd already have a hospital in the back of a humvee (they do have ambulance humvees so it would just be an upgrade contract)
Something to think about is other application of movie ideas doesn't work so well in the real world. Consider how poorly swiss army knives have replaced real tools, how poorly lasers are used, how poorly star trek style racial tolerance applies to the real world, failing to make a tricoder isn't going to be unusual in the genre.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 08 2015, @03:05PM
A hospital is not there to diagnose illnesses, it's there to treat illnesses. This of course implies the capability to diagnose them, but that's only the first step. Therefore even a tricorder with true Star Trek tricorder capabilities would not be able to replace a hospital.