来自科幻世界的医疗利器

    如果一切都在新创企业Scanadu掌握，未来不会出现机器人医生。虽然医疗设备变得越来越高科技，但位于加州山景城的Scanadu还是希望未来的医疗活动仍然由人类来掌控。

    这家公司希望自己能脱颖而出，率先开发出能扫描病人身体并得到医学诊断数据的设备。该设备可谓医疗设计领域的“三录仪”，是健康工程领域梦寐以求的终极目标之一。【《星际迷航》（Star Trek）的粉丝们肯定知道这个名字，它是这部科幻片中的一款设备，具备传感扫描、记录和分析数据等功能。】多年来，工程师们一直对这样的设备津津乐道，不过自去年五月以来，各厂商间的竞争陡然加剧。原因是，位于南加州的公益基金X Prize和高通（Qualcomm）合作宣布了一项竞赛，将给予率先研发出该设备的团队1,000万美元奖励。

    无处不在的智能手机，飞速发展的人工智能和云计算，这一切都让三录仪变得更加真实。X Prize首席执行官皮特•戴曼迪斯称：“当我们意识到一项技术已经到了临界点，我们就会启动X-Prizes基金”（该机构过去举办的竞赛曾诞生过第一架私人制造的宇宙飞船。）三录仪竞赛于上周在拉斯维加斯国际电子消费展（CES）上正式启动。

    消费性健康产品的市场正日益成熟。去年第三季度，消费电子公司Jawbone发布了UP——一款能监控用户日常活动的个人健康手环。不过这块新开垦的市场显然布满了荆棘。Jawbone最近就宣布了一项“无条件退款”活动，以平息消费者的不满。消费性健康产品市场非常前卫，目前还很难确定该前瞻性市场的价值，但调研机构Frost & Sullivan表示，医疗影像市场价值近60亿美元。

    Scanadu（名字来自其首席执行官最喜爱的诗）对此胸有成竹，现在，它也加入了这场竞争激烈的竞赛。其第一代产品计划于2013年面世，具备一些基本功能。它内置温度计，能够根据医学网站的信息给出建议，还拥有GPS功能，能将用户导航至最近的医院。用户还能在脖子上带上感应装置，向这款产品发送生命体征信息。该产品还配有“高感光摄像头”，意味着它能根据颜色生成可视化数据。德•布劳威尔表示，扫描肺癌病人可能会得到相同的颜色，而这款产品本质上就是分析各种模式。

    不过Scanadu对其产品升级版本的构想已相当明确。德•布劳威尔在该产品身后看到了一整套全新的医疗基础设备。他表示，自己的产品将来会和OnStar服务有些类似，后者是通用汽车（General Motors）开发的一套系统，能在发生事故时为司机提供紧急救助服务。Scanadu的未来产品能收集病人的身体数据，然后像OnStar一样，将病人带到相关代理人的面前，他们会联系医生进行进一步诊断。虽然仍少不了医生，但德•布劳威尔认为这能减少实体诊所的数量。

    There will be no robot doctors in the future -- at least not if Scanadu can help it. Even as hospital rooms become more high tech, the Mountain View, CA-based startup wants to make sure the future of medicine remains a human-centered experience.

    The company is vying to be the first to create a device that can scan a patient's body and return a medical diagnosis. The device, known in medical design lore as the "tricorder," is one of the elusive holy grails of health engineering. (Star Trek geeks will recognize the name from the fictional device from the show used for sensor scanning, recording data, and analyzing it.) Engineers have been talking about such a device for years, but the race intensified last May, when the X Prize Foundation, a Southern California-based nonprofit, and Qualcomm (QCOM) announced a contest promising $10 million to the first team to create one.

    The ubiquity of smartphones, and rapid developments in artificial intelligence and cloud computing have turned the tricorder into more than a pipedream. "We launch X-Prizes when we think the technology is at a tipping point," says X Prize CEO Peter Diamandis. (One of the organization's past contests generated the first privately-built spacecraft.) This contest officially launched last week at the consumer electronics trade show CES.

    The market for consumer health products is beginning to ripen. This fall the consumer electronics firm Jawbone released UP, a personal medical bracelet that monitors the user's daily routines. But the untested market is rocky. Jawbone has recently started offering "no questions asked" discounts to unsatisfied customers. While numbers for the forward thinking market are hard to pin, the medical imaging market is worth almost $6 billion, according to analysts Frost & Sullivan.

    Scanadu -- the name comes from the CEO's favorite poem -- has its work cut out for it. The company is tackling the contest in waves. The first iteration of the product is expected in 2013 and will be basic, providing a thermometer, suggestions from medical websites, and GPS functions that can lead you to a nearby hospital. A neck patch worn by users gives the device information on vital signs. The product works with "hyperspectral camera" technology, meaning it organizes visual data by color. For example, says de Brouwer, the scans of people with lung cancer might show up the same color, and the device essentially analyzes the patterns.

    But the company already has a concrete vision for advanced versions. De Brouwer sees an entirely new medical infrastructure around the device in the future. He says it will look a bit like the OnStar service, a system from General Motors (GM) that helps drivers during road disasters. The device will collect internal information from a user who is ill, and, like OnStar, will send the user to a tracking agent, who can then connect to a doctor for the diagnosis. While this preserves the role of the doctor, it will eliminate the need for doctor's offices, says de Brouwer.