X Prize Foundation Offers $10 Million for Medical Tricorder

[shadowform]

To accurately diagnose any medical condition?

Well. You would need a way to take an analyze blood samples at the very least. If you could conceivably find a way to analyze the blood in a hand-held unit you could stream the raw data through a cellular or wifi connection to something that would actually perform the analysis, but it would still be a hell of a task.

 

[tehweave]

You know what? This is an absolutely amazing idea. Seriously! Offering large amounts of prize money for things that will help advance the human race... More people should do this.

Let's have competitions on who can best tap into time travel. Who can come up with the fastest way to get from earth to mars? Who can come up with a single food item that has all the nutrients a human body will need for 24 hours? Granted, some of these are far-fetched, but for 10 million, anyone would try. I know a couple of science majors at my university who would gladly take a crack at the food item for prize money.

Motivation. That's what we all need. So let's do it! Medical tricorder! MAKE ONE.

 

[DasDestroyer]

For those of you complaining that 10 million is not enough, keep in mind that the people who invent it will get the 10 million IN ADDITION to the patent, which will definitely be worth many millions more. The 10 million is most likely to spread the word and to assure the people who are going to try making one that they will get something.

 

[Johnson McGee]

The in vitro and clinical trials for anything medical, like new drugs, routinely costs much more than even $100 million and often $1B. In summary, I don't think the $10 mil prize is going to cut it. Besides, the sales of such a device would probably dwarf that anyway.

 

[Acidwell]

This would be a hypochondriac star trek fan's ultimate ultimate fantasy.

 

[PiOfCube]

You mean something like this?
http://www.fraunhofer.de/en/press/research-news/2010-2011/17/microscope.jsp

[image src=http://www.fraunhofer.de/en/Images/md05_fo5m_mikroskop_tcm63-88890.jpg]

Yeah, it's not a full blown medical scanner... Do I at least get a finder's fee? ;-)

 

[Spud of Doom]

This is a really, really far-fetched idea. The "diagnose patients better than or equal to a panel of board certified physicians" basically means it's decades or even centuries out of reach. Diagnosis is so much more than doing vitals, blood test or imaging.

 

[standokan]

They should've done this, with a pokedex.

 

[Kargathia]

You know what? This is an absolutely amazing idea. Seriously! Offering large amounts of prize money for things that will help advance the human race... More people should do this.

Let's have competitions on who can best tap into time travel. Who can come up with the fastest way to get from earth to mars? Who can come up with a single food item that has all the nutrients a human body will need for 24 hours? Granted, some of these are far-fetched, but for 10 million, anyone would try. I know a couple of science majors at my university who would gladly take a crack at the food item for prize money.

Motivation. That's what we all need. So let's do it! Medical tricorder! MAKE ONE.

Wait a second there... didn't takeaway pizza already fit that bill? Sure lasted me 24 hours when needed.

OT: I don't know, but that'd mean you're effectively relying on a computer to tell you whether you need treatment. Somehow I don't think I trust software enough for that call.

 

[weirdee]

All this being said, a lot of this kind of research is pretty expensive, and only having the slight chance that you'd see your investment make any kind of returns at all is going to be tough to find people that actually have the kind of means necessary to follow through.

However, as our technology continues to improve, we will have wider access to the kinds of things necessary to make stuff like this fit in your pocket.

 

[coolkirb]

meh itl probably be an Iphone app, infact I think their allready some apps to diagnose certain illnesses

 

[ark123]

10 mil is NOTHING compared to what something like this would be worth. Not that it's possible to make - good luck in teaching a machine the difference between depression and mourning, or how to diagnose a panic attack.

 

[bomblord]

THE WII VITALITY SENSOR

 

[Baneat]

I'll give 10 million for a flying rainbow unicorn that vomits joy

Plus a blowjob, but not from the unicorn

 

[Max_imus]

It's a great idea, though I'd rather want it to see deployment in ambulances.
A single, small device that could quickly give you all the data you need (vital parameters, basic ECG, maybe even a quick Troponin test for cardiac infarctions) in an emergency situation? Pure gold.

 

[Tulks]

I shall enter this competition & submit an tablet with WebMD on it. I win?

Unfortunately, one of the conditions is accuracy.

It's a great idea, though I'd rather want it to see deployment in ambulances.
A single, small device that could quickly give you all the data you need (vital parameters, basic ECG, maybe even a quick Troponin test for cardiac infarctions) in an emergency situation? Pure gold.

Absolutely. Ignoring the hand-held requirement, just building something with these cababilities that fits in an ambulance or around a hospital bed would be an incredible leap forward.

 

[Vrach]

10 mil is NOTHING compared to what something like this would be worth. Not that it's possible to make - good luck in teaching a machine the difference between depression and mourning, or how to diagnose a panic attack.

Agreed on it being way too little money for such a device, the appropriate sum would be, to quote Luke and Han "more than you can imagine" "I can imagine a lot kiddo". Anyone coming up with it should pretty much get enough to secure their entire bloody lifeline to live in luxury for several millenniums

However, it's far from impossible, especially if it's given the ability to measure vitals, check blood and similar. We're creatures of chemistry, you can find out ANYTHING about us through it and run it through a machine. That said, we do not yet necessarily have the technology to check that chemistry completely (although a lot of it we could pull off even now).

A handheld device couldn't handle the computing and storage power for that, but that can easily be resolved through cloud computing. Simply have the device read the data and send it off to be processed to a far more powerful device, I'm thinking a supercomputer the size of a football field

 

[Realitycrash]

He's dead, Jim.

What you did there. I saw it.

 

[tehweave]

You know what? This is an absolutely amazing idea. Seriously! Offering large amounts of prize money for things that will help advance the human race... More people should do this.

Let's have competitions on who can best tap into time travel. Who can come up with the fastest way to get from earth to mars? Who can come up with a single food item that has all the nutrients a human body will need for 24 hours? Granted, some of these are far-fetched, but for 10 million, anyone would try. I know a couple of science majors at my university who would gladly take a crack at the food item for prize money.

Motivation. That's what we all need. So let's do it! Medical tricorder! MAKE ONE.

Wait a second there... didn't takeaway pizza already fit that bill? Sure lasted me 24 hours when needed.

OT: I don't know, but that'd mean you're effectively relying on a computer to tell you whether you need treatment. Somehow I don't think I trust software enough for that call.

The problem with it now is that we might not have the right mixture of software/hardware to be able to make a hand-held device that figures out what's wrong with you. If the right mix is found, then it will be reliable. I'm guessing they wouldn't release it without testing it properly.

Also, WHERE IS THAT PIZZA? I WILL EAT IT.