Until then, [Peter Jansen] has dedicated a few years of his life to making the Tricorder of the Star Trek universe a reality. It’s his entry for The Hackaday Prize, and made it to the finals ...

That’s the dream. The reality, best embodied in two XPRIZE Tricorder competition finalists, is that the devices are somewhat ungainly and they feature distinctly 21st century diagnostic equipment.

While the Star Trek tricorder remains the stuff of science fiction, diagnostics companies globally continue to beaver away behind the scenes in search of a machine capable of diagnosing the ...