Star Trek's tricorder comes to life
tricorderproject.org
tricorderproject.org
I've missed that app. The LCARS interface was neat but just showing off the sensor capabilities to people, especially kids, was great.
And when everyone buys it, announce pentacorder.
and when everyone buys it, announce... pentacorderS. and a month later hexacorder? no, pentacorderS white. Because one is born every minute.
This guy needs to start a company and develop the idea. Even if it's just a package of easy to get sensors (as opposed to the advanced sensors in the show version) it's still cool enough to be an awesome gift for Christmas.
I think YC should proactively recruit this guy for the next round ;p
Sure, a smartphone add-on would be cool, but as the developer says, this device intended to be used by inquisitive children, not the kind of people who own smartphones.
I hope he can start producing these more efficiently soon; I wouldn't think twice before laying down a decent amount of money to have one of my own.
Hyperspectral imaging also introduces the possibility of identifying all the objects in a scene. Terahertz waves can even "look through walls" of most material. Heck, we can do that with simple radio waves and enough computing power.[1] The only thing keeping that bench-top from being miniaturized into a handheld device are further electronic miniaturization and a phased array software antenna.
[1] http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2011/ll-seeing-through-walls-1...
but it would be really useful. have used the metal detector in the android tricorder app to find metal in places where we were planning to drill.
if somebody builds them in bulk the price will come down. even an expensive version will sell to geeks, nerds and hackers.