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.
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Deadlines in the competition to build a functional "medical tricorder" have been extended, and some requirements have been altered:
Today, XPRIZE announced the Qualcomm Tricorder XPRIZE has been officially extended through early 2017, providing the seven finalist teams with additional time to make adjustments to their tricorder devices to ensure they can succeed in the competition.
[...] In addition, we modified some parameters of the competition and implemented some interim required steps before the next phase of consumer testing. Here is a snapshot of the revised guidelines and timeline:
- The number of conditions the tricorders are expected to diagnose was decreased from 16 to 13, eliminating the requirements to detect TB, Hepatitis A and stroke. (You can see the full list of required conditions here.) We did this to keep pace with current epidemiology, as well as to reduce risk of contagion to the testers.
- The teams will deliver at least 30 new prototypes once they accomplish additional steps. The deadline for these prototypes will be set early next year.
- The next phase of consumer testing will begin in September 2016
- Winners will be announced in early 2017.
This new schedule will allow us to support the teams as they further perfect their tricorders, and will ensure their prototypes are tested and viable before they enter the final phase of the competition.
Previously: The Qualcomm Tricorder XPRIZE Top Ten
The Race to Build a Real-Life Version of the "Star Trek" Tricorder
Ocean Discovery X Prize Competition for Mapping the Sea Floor, Sponsored by Shell
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 08 2015, @12:36AM
Heartbeat is all wrong. His body temperature is. Jim, this man is a Terrorist!
(Score: 3, Funny) by VortexCortex on Wednesday July 08 2015, @03:05AM
Terrorist detectors will never work. All politicians and evening news anchors would test positive, and thus prohibit the use of such a device.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Wednesday July 08 2015, @01:28AM
http://www.gizmag.com/unispectral-hyperspectral-imaging-smartphone-camera/36858/ [gizmag.com]
https://www.aftau.org/news-page-computers--technology?=&storyid4702=2183&ncs4702=3 [aftau.org]
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/903107259/scio-your-sixth-sense-a-pocket-molecular-sensor-fo [kickstarter.com]
A smartphone tricorder should allow you to quickly check the composition of something and intelligently pick out the objects you want to scan and "average" the data gathered from multiple points on the object. Eventually it should identify as many diseases as possible or try to determine what is in the body without drawing blood.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 08 2015, @01:33AM
Medical tricorders are cheaper than medical doctors because tricorders can be operated by idiots. The tricorder said you're sick, now move along to quarantine (read: prison camp) until a doctor becomes available to treat your illness, and you'll be on a waiting list for a few years, hope you live that long.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 08 2015, @03:36AM
Does anyone else think of the doctor visit in Idiocracy when they read this?
(Score: 3, Insightful) by tibman on Wednesday July 08 2015, @03:56AM
Wait. No. This one goes in your ear, this one in your mouth, and this one in your butt.
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(Score: 3, Interesting) by Absolutely.Geek on Wednesday July 08 2015, @02:12AM
As an engineer (Control Systems); I like the idea of continuously monitoring health data. Because more data generally leads to better decisions (controls); however I am not that keen on wearing a device at all times that is anymore inconvinent then my watch (Pebble Time).
I guess we will see how these things turn out; I am not that hopeful for the first gen; maybe by gen 4 - 7 these things will actually be useful.
Don't trust the police or the government - Shihad: My mind's sedate.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 08 2015, @02:19AM
Your continuously monitored health data reports that you were angry for a five minute period today. Anger will not be tolerated. Report to mandatory anger management for reeducation.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 08 2015, @02:22AM
I too thought that way.
Today I wear a diabetic pump (size of pager | flip phone) I wear it 7x24, except in water. I have an infusion site to replace once every 3-4 days. I "never" wore t-shirts. Now my daughter sews a pocket inside of them on right-hand side, so it does not interfere with seat-belts and pens in left-hand pocket.
You can become accustom to about anything.
My father has a pacemaker. He had to stop using microwave ovens. It was implanted in "pocket" of his left chest muscle. He had to be opened about once every 4 years to replace batteries.
(Score: 2) by frojack on Wednesday July 08 2015, @03:15AM
Yeah, not so sure continuous monitoring is worth while except in cases of specific medical problems.
Living in imminent fail mode is bad enough for the people who have to. Not sure it's all that good for the psyche.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Absolutely.Geek on Wednesday July 08 2015, @04:02AM
That is a very valid point; but as a general rule having the data is always preferable to not having the data.
I work on plants with many 1000's of data inputs and outputs; operators cannot handle that kind of data volume; so we automate most functions and alarm on "out of normal" conditions. I would expect that the eventual health monitoring systems in the future wil also have this kind of alarming.
Generally people wouldn't need to bother with checking their data; as automated alerts will be generated either informing you that you should consult a doctor as various warning signs have passed some threshold; or your medical info will generate an alarm that informs either a hospital / doctor that you need imediate attention.
Obviously there would be poeple that obsess over the data and that would have to be dealt with. But we shouldn't restrict such a huge advantage to prevent a minor problem.
Don't trust the police or the government - Shihad: My mind's sedate.
(Score: 2) by AnonTechie on Wednesday July 08 2015, @07:56AM
Reminds me of something I read ...
The Personal Analytics of My Life [stephenwolfram.com] from Stephen Wolfram's Blog
Albert Einstein - "Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former."
(Score: 3, Informative) by Freeman on Wednesday July 08 2015, @05:55PM
You'll always have Hypochondriacs. Doesn't mean we shouldn't work on something like this that could be extremely useful for the vast majority of people. Sure, there are Privacy issues, etc, but why wouldn't I have control over my own device? I should be able to choose whether it just notified me and/or notified my specific Physician, or was able to call 911 for me.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 08 2015, @02:52PM
The big question is who gets to use that data. In the wrong hands, the decisions based on it may not be the best for you.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Wednesday July 08 2015, @02:22AM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 08 2015, @02:25AM
Great news. You just volunteered to invent the replicator. Get to work!
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Wednesday July 08 2015, @02:55AM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by mrcoolbp on Wednesday July 08 2015, @04:21AM
Too late, I already got excited.
(Score:1^½, Radical)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 08 2015, @06:13AM
(Score: 5, Informative) by tibman on Wednesday July 08 2015, @04:09AM
Not a medical tricorder but this is by far the best (actually existing) device i've ever seen: https://hackaday.io/project/1395-open-source-science-tricorder [hackaday.io]
Code and design documents to build your own: https://github.com/tricorderproject/arducordermini [github.com]
SN won't survive on lurkers alone. Write comments.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 08 2015, @05:31AM
In case no one has said this yet... I'm a Doctor not a bricklayer! Kudos to those who can come up with this kind of stuff in software, I'm strictly a hardware type of person and have no idea how to do this kind of stuff. Give me a schematic and I'll build it for you, give me the code and I can burn the chips for you, but please don't ask me to write code, my brain just can't function like that. Some folks folks were meant to code and some were meant to build the hardware.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 08 2015, @08:36AM
I hope you can do more than that. A pick and place readily replaces what you have written. Surely you can do much more than a machine that can only follow instructions.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 08 2015, @06:24AM
but there are other star trek tri-corders?
off the top of my head, maybe:
measure distance
measure "background" radiation
measure photon spectrum
measure loudness of soundwaves
measure temperature
measure pH value
measure volts
measure amps
measure Hz
measure humidity
measure angle to "g"
measure atmospheric composition
...
AND the killer: measure true universal value of something : P
-
please infer anything you want from missing/not mentioning something important that can be measured.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 08 2015, @01:14PM
Objectively? Zero. Or rather any number you care to choose just so long as everything, including fractions of the same thing, have an identical number.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 08 2015, @02:59PM
OK, I can tell you how to build and use a device that can tell you the true universal value of anything.
Building: Take a piece of paper and a pen. With the pen, write "42" on the front side of the paper.
Using: Take your universal value measuring device. Point its back to the object whose true universal value you want to know. Read off the true universal value from the front side.
(Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Wednesday July 08 2015, @07:32AM
However dogs have very sensitive noses. I expect you could use a gas chromatograph for that but you wouldn't be able to carry it around with you.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 08 2015, @04:45PM
Why dogs when you can just grab a bee from the air and train it up for whatever you need in an hour?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hymenoptera_training [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Wednesday July 08 2015, @10:02PM
Big Pharma.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(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.
(Score: 2) by khakipuce on Wednesday July 08 2015, @02:05PM
Surely the place to start *is* with a generalized scanner type device rather than focussing on specific conditions. E.g. a blood analyser that reports deviations from norms, that would then lead to indications for anemia, leukocytosis, HIV. Go at it the other way and something may be missed.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Freeman on Wednesday July 08 2015, @06:02PM
Please note, in Star Trek, the Medical Tricorder was pretty much always operated by a Doctor. The Tricorder was a tool. Not a replacement for a human brain.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"