Next X Prize: ‘Star Trek’-Inspired Diagnostic Device

The X Prize Foundation, which offers $10-million awards for technological advances in areas such as space travel and automotive fuel efficiency, is taking a page from the “Star Trek” script for its next contest, tech site CNET reports.

In collaboration with the charity arm of the telecommunications firm Qualcomm, the foundation will award a prize to the developer of a mobile device that can accurately check blood pressure and other health conditions and diagnose diseases, along the lines of the “tricorder” famously used in the sci-fi film and television franchise.

The winning entry will use wireless sensing and artificial intelligence to build a device able “to make medical diagnoses independent of a physician or health care provider,” giving consumers “access to the state of their health in the palm of their hand,” according to a statement announcing the competition.