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iPhone as Tricorder

Someone hacked a IR sensor as a pulse detector or the like for an iphone. There's linkage somewhere on this forum.

That being said, the software and form factor are right, but we need to vastly improve both active and passive remote sensing technologies before a "real" tricorder goes into service.
 
I don't know if it's a good idea for every single person to be carrying around a scanning device with them -- some people, maybe, but not everybody. When I went to school for example life could be difficult enough without everyone taking pictures and videos of everybody with their cell-phones, iPhones and stuff. This would actually make cell-phones an even more invasive part of daily life -- I know we can do it, but I don't know if we should...


CuttingEdge100
 
More like a PADD than a tricoder. It's not like one can aim their iPhone at a rock and have the rock analysed for structure and content.
 
Garrovick,

Actually that was an early impression of mine. In fact when I first saw it, it immediately struck me as a small sleeker version of the Star Trek PADD
 
Some guy made an LCARS skin for the iPhone, and I thought it was the coolest thing ever. I was going to buy one just for that. Decided not to bother, too much money. My current Razr2 is doing just fine, knock on wood.
 
I just have to shake my head when people suggest the iPhone is the first anything, other than the first Average Joe-accessible smartphone. That was its breakthrough, ease of use, not new features. It has, and probably always will, lag behind other manufacturers in features simply because Apple likes to tweak things to fit their requirements for usability or accessibility. Not to say it's a bad product, just not the platform one would be using for something like a tricorder, especially because such devices already exist. Not nearly as complex as a ST tricorder, but portable X-Ray devices, radiation scanners, bomb/drug matter detectors. Single role hand-held scanners.

There's a long history of vertical devices (wireless industry term for custom industrial, government and enterprise devices), including mobile scanners. Many run proprietary OS. A lot of other vertical devices run Windows CE. WinCE is 90% similar to consumer-targeted Windows Phones. Of those cheaper, more easily obtained units, you have many with IR, bluetooth, Wifi, multiple cellular technologies, and support plug in modules. WinCE/Windows Mobile is a lot more like the PC environment, in that you can build your own device (scanner), write drivers for WinCE to use it, and a front end app to access, store and relay information (tricorder app).

Ask me in 5 years, and Android (most famous as the core OS of "Google-powered" phones) might (extra emphasis on might) largely supplant Windows CE-based OS on vertical devices, just as Windows Mobile and Blackberry largely replaced Palm OS. More likely, Android will be the hidden OS for many consumer items, ranging from cellphones of varing levels of complexity (including simple flip phones) to MID's, PMD's, cars/trucks, and GPS units.
 
STR said:
I just have to shake my head when people suggest the iPhone is the first anything, other than the first Average Joe-accessible smartphone. That was its breakthrough, ease of use, not new features. It has, and probably always will, lag behind other manufacturers in features simply because Apple likes to tweak things to fit their requirements for usability or accessibility. Not to say it's a bad product, just not the platform one would be using for something like a tricorder, especially because such devices already exist. Not nearly as complex as a ST tricorder, but portable X-Ray devices, radiation scanners, bomb/drug matter detectors. Single role hand-held scanners.

There's a long history of vertical devices (wireless industry term for custom industrial, government and enterprise devices), including mobile scanners. Many run proprietary OS. A lot of other vertical devices run Windows CE. WinCE is 90% similar to consumer-targeted Windows Phones. Of those cheaper, more easily obtained units, you have many with IR, bluetooth, Wifi, multiple cellular technologies, and support plug in modules. WinCE/Windows Mobile is a lot more like the PC environment, in that you can build your own device (scanner), write drivers for WinCE to use it, and a front end app to access, store and relay information (tricorder app).

Ask me in 5 years, and Android (most famous as the core OS of "Google-powered" phones) might (extra emphasis on might) largely supplant Windows CE-based OS on vertical devices, just as Windows Mobile and Blackberry largely replaced Palm OS. More likely, Android will be the hidden OS for many consumer items, ranging from cellphones of varing levels of complexity (including simple flip phones) to MID's, PMD's, cars/trucks, and GPS units.
Click to expand...

I have to agree.

I ended up buying an "iTouch" because it's a cool space agey looking device. However, it's functionality is horrid. I can only download MP3's (no WMA or OGG), and all movies have to be recoded to Quicktime to get them to play (and even then it's a 50/50 change you'll recode wrong and have to redo it again with different video encoding settings) and of course the iTunes software doesn't do ANY of it. They are happy that you go to the iTunes store and buy all your shows and movies from them.

I had to buy all the apps I use. I had to buy a Hotmail access tool to access my E-mails. The games are primitive, reminiscent of the old Gameboy Color, and near impossible to play in a fun way (the motion detector is iffy at best). And the battery lasts about 20 mins of intensive game play from a full charge.

I had to purchase OS 3.0 to get the Bluetooth, which is a function it should have had in the first place (it obviously came with the hardware pre OS 3.0). I can't open PDF files without another app I have to buy. I can't open Word files without another app. I can't change themes and skins without hacking the #@$@# out of it

I can't edit playlists from the device. I have to do it from iTunes software. I can't sync contact information without yet "another" app I have to buy.

So basically it has become a very expensive MP3 player for me, because it's near impossible to do anything else useful with it. my previous HP iPaq was 10 times more useful.
 
There's also a tricorder app for Android.

It isn't bad ... it displays readings from the accelerometers, magnetic sensors, readouts on nearby cell towers and raw gps data, and solar activity (downloaded from websites). The new audio analysis tools are perhaps the coolest of features.

But I'm disappointed there are no recordings of the data for later use. Tracking cellphone signal strength or WiFi signal strength and recording it along with GPS data could be very useful for mapping purposes. I'd like to be able to take a snapshot from the audio analysis and save it for comparison with other audio waveforms.
 
The closest I've seen to a "real" consumer-available Tricorder thus far is the Layar application for the iPhone and Android platforms. It uses the camera to display what you're looking at, and overlays a grid and "layers" of information relevant to what you're searching for. It's currently a glorified local business search app, but the capability exists to expand it to the point where you can point the phone at buildings under construction and see a representation of its projected completed shape, or point it at objects of interest and call up some text detailing what you're looking at.

http://gizmodo.com/5292748/layar-first-mobile-augmented-reality-browser-is-your-real-life-hud
 
Remember the IBM proposal for memory aids? MIT was working on it too. I posted about this a long time ago, if I find the link I'll bring them up.

They would be fitted to all cell-phones.

I wrote dimly about them because I felt that the government could operate the sensors in the phone even if the owner switched them off (The FBI does know how to activate the speaker on modern cell phones, and has done so to catch mobsters), and the NSA has been monitoring all our transmissions from at least 2003 to 2008 and may still be. Recently the NSA has been working on a program called AQAINT which is basically a system which uses all the data the NSA collects, coupled to an A.I. system which essentially can essentially create dossiers on individuals so detailed that it could gain insights into not only the person's personality, but even their thought processes. It would be an excellent way for the government to know everything about everybody.

Plus, is ubiquitous surveillance technology, with everybody monitoring each other really a good thing?
 
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