Star Trek-style 'tricorder' invention offered $10m prize
Star Trek-style 'tricorder' invention offered $10m prize By Chris Vallance BBC News Without the tricorder The Enterprise crew would have struggled to boldly go A $10m (£6.5m) prize is on offer to whoever can create a Star Trek-like medical "tricorder". The Qualcomm Tricorder X Prize has challenged researchers to build a tool capable of capturing "key health metrics and diagnosing a set of 15 diseases". It needs to be light enough for would-be Dr McCoys to carry - a maximum weight of 5lb (2.2kg). The prize was launched at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. According to the official Star Trek technical manual, a tricorder is a portable "sensing, computing and data communications device". The kit captured the imagination of the show's millions of viewers when it was first used in the cult series' first broadcast in 1966. In the show, which was set in the 23rd Centu