A Smartphone Dongle That Will Tell You If You’ve Got STDs

After the hoverboard , there are few sci - fi invention more work - on than Star Trek ’s tricorder . Portable , simple diagnostic automobile have been promise for age — there ’s even a $ 7 million pillage for build one — but most design are still years away from reality .

While this special smartphone dongle sure is n’t a tricorder — it can only diagnose three conditions — it does at least survive outside of a lab . The dongle , designed by a squad from Columbia Engineering , has already spend time with healthcare workers in Rwanda . The twist can detect HIV or syphilis antibody , using a process bid immunoassay .

health care workers just have to sting the finger of the patient , load the blood into a microfluidic cassette , then load up the cassette into the dongle and look 15 minutes . The entire outgrowth is guided by on - concealment delineation , meaning that very little training is needed to use it . Best of all , it ’s tinny — an figure $ 34 per dongle , rather than the tens of thousands conventional equipment monetary value . [ Columbia Engineering ]