XPrize winner says its Tricorder is better than ‘Star Trek’

The technology of Gene Roddenberry's Star Trek looked so far forward it could almost have been used as a visual aide to Arthur C. Clarke's third law: technology so advanced, it's indistinguishable from magic. Despite the fictional technological magic...

ICYMI: Trekkie health scanner, car vending machine and more

Today on In Case You Missed It: A vending machine for cars (by Carvana) just launched in Nashville, removing the necessity of talking to a car salesman -- or anyone, really -- before driving off in a new ride. Stanford engineers made a health scann...

Stanford scientists get a little closer to a medical tricorder

Being able to identify problems with a person's body without subjecting them to invasive procedures is the fantasy of all Star Trek doctors. There's even a prize offering a fortune to anyone who can effectively recreate the tricorder technology out...

8 Star Trek Technologies that Become Real


NASA physicist Harold White and artist Mark Rademaker recently released spectacular images of the “IXS Enterprise,” a design for a hypothetical faster-than-light starship based on work being done in...

Tricorder Messenger Bag Is Perfect for Your Next Away Mission

When you beam down to an alien planet, you want to make sure you have all of your gear. You also want to make sure you aren’t wearing a red shirt. The most important things are to have your phaser and tricorder with you. If you can’t have a tricorder, at least bring this tricorder messenger bag instead, and then pretend to use it like a tricorder.

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This Star Trek Tricorder Replica Small Messenger Bag won’t scan for life forms, but it will keep your stuff all in one place in a comfortable to wear bag.

Wear it with a Star Trek costume or just everyday. It has a built in mirror and the bag measures 8.75″(H) x 6 “(W) x 2.75 “(L). Always have your tricorder with you. It’s just $39.99(USD) from Entertainment Earth, and ships this June. Pre-order yours today, so you can be ready to beam down and check out the alien environment as soon as possible.

Man Sells Fake Medical Tricorder For $800,000

An Illinois man named Howard Leventhal persuaded a company to help finance “Heltheo’s McCoy Home Health Tablet”. Yes it sounds as bad as it is. This is a fake health device that’s based loosely on the medical Tricorder that McCoy used on Star Trek. Leventhal was arrested for fraud on Oct. 22, not surprisingly he did not have the tech to beam himself out of dodge.
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Last year, Leventhal told executives at Paragon Financial Group, Inc. that Health Canada was backing his “home health tablet” and that it was based on the Star Trek tricorder. The company gave him $800,000 in funding. Apparently no one bothered to check this guy or his story out. So then Leventhal forged contracts between his fake company Neovision USA and the Canadian government to secure even more funding. He even forged Deputy Health Minister Glenda Yeates’ signature. The contract was made to look like it promised him $8.2 million in funding directly from Canadian government.

This guy had big brass cojones, I’ll give him that. However, this whole thing was very stupid. He had to know he would get caught. And he did. After he tried to get $2.5 million more in funding, he gave the fake contracts to an undercover agent. Right now, he is out on a $100,000 bond, with a hearing on Oct.30. What a maroon. Seriously, they need to study this guy and see what makes him tick. Maybe they can learn some things and head off this sort of thing in the future.

On the other hand, I suppose the investors deserve what they got if they were that bad at their due diligence. All they had to do was investigate his story in the first place before coughing up their dough.

[via Gizmodo via Nerd Approved]

Star Trek the Previous Generation: Steampunk Tricorder and Phaser

Given all of the times that the Star Trek crew has traveled to the past in the Holodeck, I’m really surprised that we didn’t see a phaser and tricorder like these ones on the show.
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Flo Svensson’s steampunk Starfleet away team gear is nicely detailed and are gadgets of an age to come that just happen to look like weapons from an age gone by.

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I can already see Data and Picard wearing top hats and monocles, blending in with the locals, in search of an alien who altered the timeline. It’s a good thing LaForge gave them some time-accurate gear so they won’t stand out.

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Maybe Mark Twain will show up. Props to these props.

[via Neatorama]

Scanadu Scout tricorder tops $1 million in funding, now comes in black

Scanadu tricorder tops $1 million in funding, now comes in black

Scanadu clearly knows to tap into our collective Star Trek dreams, as the company just reached $1 million in funding for its Scout tricorder. The backing so far comes from people in 91 countries, including luminaries like Eugene Roddenberry (who else?) and Steve Wozniak. That figure is more than symbolic, we'd add -- backers who've paid for a Scout can now get theirs in black rather than a clinical-looking white. Should the new color option prove tempting, it's not necessarily too late; as of this writing, there's still a few days left to make a pledge.

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Source: Indiegogo