...AND CHEAPER...:

Launched in 2012, the $10 Qualcomm Tricorder XPrize challenged groups and companies to develop a device that continuously tracks a person's vital signs and diagnoses up to 15 health conditions--from anemia and high blood pressure to urinary tract infections and stroke--all from the comfort of a person's home. The hope is for the winning tricorder to be easy to use, compact, and efficient; it can't weigh more than five pounds, and it must be able to measure these health conditions within 72 hours.

Greg Campany, senior director for the Qualcomm Tricorder XPrize, spoke at a panel at South By Southwest detailing the competition. He noted that the goal of the tricorder prize is to help solve a major problem facing the world: poor and inefficient access to medical care. Now, when people suffer a medical issue, a doctor's visit is required to confirm the ailment and then prescribe medication. Depending on where you live, that process can be both complicated and time consuming. But with an at-home diagnostic tool, consumers can know in record time what they're suffering from, without the need to visit a doctor's office or emergency room.

Tricorder technology will ultimately help fill the shortage of doctors in both developed and developing countries.

Campany says such technology will ultimately expand the reach and impact of physicians across the globe. "In both the United States and abroad, developed countries and developing countries, there's a shortage of doctors throughout the world," Campany tells Popular Science. "There's a lot of inefficiencies in the system, and these inefficiencies are really impacting patient care, from the point of there's a lot of needless deaths, and there's also a lot of needless costs just associated with trying to deliver health care."

Follow @brothersjudd