Tricorder - "Real" Tricorders

"Real" Tricorders

Software exists to make hand-held devices simulate a tricorder. Examples include Jeff Jetton's Tricorder for the PalmPilot; the "genuine Tricorder from Elegant Solutions" Web application for the Pocket PC, iPhone, and iPod Touch; and an Android version.

Vital Technologies Corporation sold a portable device dubbed the "Official Star-Trek Tricorder Mark 1" (formally, the TR-107 Tricorder Mark 1) in 1996. Its features were an "Electromagnetic Field (EMF) Meter", "Two-Mode Weather Station", (thermometer and barometer), "Colorimeter" (no wavelength given), "Light meter", and "Stardate Clock and Timer" (a clock and timer). Spokespersons claimed the device was a "serious scientific instrument". Vital Technologies marketed the TR-107 as a limited run of 10,000 units before going out of business, although far fewer than 10,000 were likely ever built. The company was permitted to call this device a "tricorder" because Gene Roddenberry's contract included a clause allowing any company able to create functioning technology to use the name.

In February 2007, researchers from Purdue University publicly announced their portable (briefcase-sized) DESI-based mass spectrometer, the Mini-10, which can be used to analyze compounds in ambient conditions without prior sample preparation. This was also announced as a "tricorder".

In May 2008, researchers from Georgia Tech publicly announced their portable hand-held multi-spectral imaging device, which aids in the detection of the severity of an injury under the skin, including the presence of pressure ulcers, regardless of lighting conditions or skin pigmentation. The day after the announcement, technology websites including Inside Tech and The Future of Things began comparing this device to the Star Trek tricorder.

On May 10, 2011 the X Prize Foundation announced with Qualcomm Incorporated the Tricorder X Prize, a $10 million incentive to develop a mobile device that can diagnose patients as well as or better than a panel of board certified physicians. On Jan 12, 2012, the contest was officially opened at the 2012 Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. Early entrants to the competition include two Silicon Valley startups, namely "Scanadu", which began work on the medical tricorder in early 2011. Scanadu is led by Walter De Brouwer, who previously co-founded the deep science research lab, Starlab, with Nicholas Negroponte.

On Aug 23, 2011, moonblink's tricorder app for Android was served with a copyright infringement notice by lawyers for CBS and it was deleted from the Android Market by Google. On January 5 it was put back again as a new app in the Android market.

In 2012, cognitive science researcher Dr. Peter Jansen announced having developed a handheld mobile computing device modeled after the design of the tricorder.