Believe it or not, a lot of the technology seen in the original Star Trek series has already become a reality. From personal communicators (the modern mobile phone) to a communication officer's earpiece (bluetooth earpieces). Even the early traces of the replicator introduced later in the franchise can be seen in modern day 3-D printers.
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| The Star Trek medical tricorder: compact and versatile, it provides users with instant diagnoses for a number of injuries, conditions, and diseases as well as general vital signs and other useful health and health-related environmental metrics. |
What is a medical tricorder? It is a handheld device used by doctors in the Star Trek universe to quickly and non-invasively diagnosis medical conditions. They've been depicted as capable of identifying ailments and physical damage, reading symptoms such as temperature, hydration, and neural activity, identifying DNA (though detailed sequencing was usually done back in sickbay), and even environmental factors that may pose a health threat.
What are the requirements? From the official prize website: "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." More details about guidelines can be found here.
Hackerspaces? While a single hackerspace might not have the resources to produce a single device capable of the full set of requirements, the open source collaborative nature of hackerspaces worldwide could probably each focus on a few solutions and ultimately combine them as success is met. A visit to Hackaday.com's "Medical Hacks" already shows many innovative solutions that could enhance health, and lower the cost for tools normally out of most people's price range.
The key to lowering helthcare costs in the long run is coming up with cheaper, more capable biomedical technology and increasing access to quality education to both develop and use the technology as well as apply it in a medical context. Quite obviously a single diagnosis tool you can hold in the palm of your hand is a good start. It would be interesting to see what other objects in the typical Starfleet sickbay inventors and hackers could come up with after being inspired by this new competition.
