Five-year Qualcomm Tricorder XPRIZE competition awards $2.5M first place prize to Final Frontier Medical Devices

After five years and 300 applications, Qualcomm’s Tricorder XPRIZE competition — named after the sci-fi Star Trek medical device — has awarded its prizes. First place and the $2.5 million cash prize goes to the aptly named Final Frontier Medical Devices in Philadelphia, and the second-place $1 million prize goes to Taiwanese Dynamical Biomarkers Group. Both groups came close to completing the competition’s challenge: to build working prototypes of devices that can diagnose 13 medical conditions without a doctor’s aid, mimicking the fictional Tricorder. They have truly gone boldly where no group of scientists has gone before.