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Improve the Tricorder...


Spacescifi

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The Star Trek tricorder is OK, but like many things in scifi it can be improved by making it more practical using common sense and modern tech.

Here is how I would improve it:

1. Shape it like a gun, make it bigger too. Point and scan. Have a detachable smart phone part one can take off to look at the data after scanning. The scanning would be point and scan, but configuration of the scan and the scan radius will be done beforehand with the detachable smart phone device which you then reattach to the scan gun to configure it.

2. Assuming you needed a miltary tricorder scan gun to give real-time data, you could wear smart glasses that show the scanned data on your glasses as you scan,  and you could even program the scanning via your eyeball movement,  blinks, and voice as desired.

What are your ideas?

Edited by Spacescifi
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i don't get why its as ubiquitous in scifi as it is. its not just star trek, portable scanning devices are all over scifi. however our sensor tech is booming right now. even the lowly smart phone is packed with sensors. our technology can see far beyond the visible spectrum, see heat, see sound waves, see magnetic fields, detect motion, orientation, position, distance, detect and identify ambient gasses, identify materials and so on. usually all with small, often single chip solutions. some people have even made a go at making actual tricorders with this stuff. yet they are far from ubiquitous. it just seems to be that the mk1 eyeball and other human senses are more than adequate for most jobs. if you need one you need not look any farther than your smart phone. the future is now.

but i think about it and a clunky device that occupies one of your hands, requiring its user to stare at a screen, is probably not what you would see in the more distant future. i see either perhaps some kind of ar device, or even cybernetic or biotech implants that have these scanning technologies that connect directly to the brain. 

Edited by Nuke
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A smart phone connected to google (presumably really just the starships' servers, but in Star Trek they *could* access datacenters half a galaxy away).  The whole point is to get the plot going as fast as possible and to deliver said information quickly to the crew and audience.

See also "as you know, Bob".

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I've sort of had this idea based off the tricorder from star trek, that something similar to the tricorder would be used not just a scanner but would be used as identification, tracking, insignia, even a short range weapon.

Anyways, on topic, I think it's main improvement needs to be that it needs to have a more user friendly user interface.

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22 hours ago, wumpus said:

A smart phone connected to google (presumably really just the starships' servers, but in Star Trek they *could* access datacenters half a galaxy away).  The whole point is to get the plot going as fast as possible and to deliver said information quickly to the crew and audience.

See also "as you know, Bob".

i think their computers would be such that they could just keep a local copy of the what is effectively the federation's internet and keep it synced over subspace as time/distance permits. of course the problem with that is you can always store more data. why store megapixels when you can store gigapixels. why use 30 hz video when you can use 30 khz. the other problem is that subspace communication is complete handwavium, with standard light speed methods you simply wouldn't have the bandwidth to keep things synchronized across the solar system, let alone between stars. you might still be able to keep a copy with you when you launch on some high density long term storage, but we generate way too much data to catch all the updates. 

Edited by Nuke
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As anyway "99%" of the internet data is a randomly generated by bloggers white noise and cat pictures, they can just generate their own private offline internet right inside the head implant.

Just a neural network should be trained to generate what the user wants.

And a Perfect Cat Emulator.

Edited by kerbiloid
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1 hour ago, kerbiloid said:

As anyway "99%" of the internet data is a randomly generated by bloggers white noise and cat pictures, they can just generate their own private offline internet right inside the head implant.

Just a neural network should be trained to generate what the user wants.

And a Perfect Cat Emulator.

but cat pictures are important! you will probably want to take real cats with you anyway, as any colony is initially going to need to be very agrarian, and cats are excellent at managing farm pests (assuming they are biologically compatible and its not a death slug situation and you dont give them full portions of kibble).

Edited by Nuke
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3 minutes ago, Nuke said:

but cat pictures are important! you will probably want to take real cats with you anyway, as any colony is initially going to need to be very agrarian, and cats are excellent at managing farm pests (assuming they are biologically compatible and its not a death slug situation and you dont give them full portions of kibble).

I'm afraid that cats evolving on the planets with very different gravity, will be so different, that most of the colonists will anyway have to emulate a proper, terrestrial virtual cat in their brain implant.

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9 hours ago, kerbiloid said:

I'm afraid that cats evolving on the planets with very different gravity, will be so different, that most of the colonists will anyway have to emulate a proper, terrestrial virtual cat in their brain implant.

cats on a lunar colony certainly would be able to catch quite a bit of air. for heavier gravity, bring cats with stockier builds like maine coons or norwegian forest cats. cats already come stock with oversized legs in relation to body size over most animals. 

Edited by Nuke
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On 9/16/2020 at 5:06 AM, Nuke said:

cats on a lunar colony certainly would be able to catch quite a bit of air. for heavier gravity, bring cats with stockier builds like maine coons or norwegian forest cats. cats already come stock with oversized legs in relation to body size over most animals. 

Birds in an Moon city would need to adapt to ballistic cats :) probably respond by flying higher, its not like fight is very tiresome on the moon. 

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The tricorder is fine as it is. Rugged, simple and clearly not a weapon. Personally, I don’t think any of the improvements touted in this thread are actually improvements.

Shape it like a gun and it’ll get mistaken for a gun which could get awkward. Also unless you’re going Original Series retro, tricorders are small enough that you’re not going to get a lot more pointing accuracy (assuming it’s needed) with a gun shaped version anyway.

Detachable data module. Here in the 21st century we have these nifty innovations known as wifi and over-the-air syncing. I figure Starfleet might have something similar. Later models had touch screens as I recall and if there’s one thing that touchscreens excel at it’s presenting different interface configurations on the fly.

Not having a removable portion means your tricorder can be smaller, lighter and more robust. Be kind of embarrassing if you needed to take a reading, only to find that your data module fell out somewhere. Probably when you banged it on a rock as you were dodging the local charismatic megafauna.

Direct neural interface. Possible but it seems like an overengineered solution to a comparatively simple problem. To be as reliable as a tricorder, you’d also need to be sure that whatever sensors you’re wiring into your brain can’t be tampered with (remotely or otherwise), aren’t  affected by background radiation and can’t be hacked. All of which could probably be achieved but if I was boldly going into an unknown and unknowable situation I think I’d prefer the good old handheld tricorder to a potentially fried brain.

Also, for a ‘simpler’ version that merely projects an image of the relevant data into your visual cortex - I’d prefer not to have a screenful of more or less useful data cluttering up the important details. Like, for example, the corner-of-my-eye warning that something toothy on a strange world is about to jump out at me, with hostile intentions.

Edited by KSK
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On 9/20/2020 at 9:55 PM, magnemoe said:

Buff cats intelligence to make them as useful as dogs

That would require a debuff. Cats are already smart enough to only do things they consider useful. :) 

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One thing science fiction stories have against them from the start, is that technology is made to solve problems, and good stories have problems that are hard to solve.

Let's face it: By 2400 we'll probably have thought to thought communication and complete augmented reality. Your friend from Spain will think a joke at you in real time. There will probably be some sort of system in place to filter and weed out fake news, and whatever body sensors you're wearing will not only forewarn you about any growing issues to your body (I.E. "Your blood sugar is getting high. Don't eat that next Ritz Cracker") but it'll probably know you well enough to answer any questions or concerns you're thinking about before you even think about it, based entirely on predictive models.

And getting back to a story; I imagine by 2400 if you're shot in the chest, your clothes or whatever will be smart enough to call the police and medics for you with full details on the type of wound suffered, your location, and who shot you. That sort of cuts down a lot of drama for sci fi stories, especially on NCC 1701-D where someone is wounded or kidnapped or under mind control every other week.

And so a sci fi writer needs to dumb down the helpfulness of next gen technologies to make their story work. Otherwise there's no entertainment to be had. If I were to improve a tri-corder it would be to remove the handheld entirely and make it a thought-based virtual tool that uses the ships powerful external and internal sensor network to gather data, and using your own intent you (and not those around you, unless you so wish) can see all of the pertinent data you desire at will and to the extent you need. But that is very hard to visualize, explain, or use in a TV show.

TL;DR - A tricorder is clumsy and unrealistic because it needs to be for the story to work.

Edited by WestAir
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1 hour ago, WestAir said:

will think a joke at you in real time.

Mwahahah!..

1 hour ago, WestAir said:

I imagine by 2400 if you're shot in the chest, your clothes or whatever will be smart enough to call the police and medics

No need, as in 2040 the police will be videotracing you in real time.

1 hour ago, WestAir said:

(I.E. "Your blood sugar is getting high. Don't eat that next Ritz Cracker")

And electric collar to make it more convincing..

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Replying to @WestAir.

That all sounds pretty cool and not even too hard to visualise - POV shots from sensor augmented (for want of a better expression) protagonists are reasonably common in sci-fi films. Think Predator, RoboCop or the various Terminator films for example. Heck, the grandaddy of them all would probably be the Six Million Dollar Man.

My (hopefully non-snarky) reply would be that with that kind of sensor capacity, why are you sending anyone to explore a planet in person? It sounds like you could get all the data you need just by sitting in orbit.

The obvious, if slightly circular answer is to assume that there are places on the planet which your ship sensors can’t reach, or can’t scan with sufficient precision or resolution. At which point you need to send down an away team equipped with scanning equipment that’s independent of your ship’s sensors. Enter the tricorder. :) 

Edit.

And an obvious retort to my obvious answer is that sometimes there’s no substitute for just being there, exploring at first-hand rather than via sensor proxy. If you’ll forgive the plug, I touch on this a bit in a short story I wrote, where one of the main characters takes exactly that view, whilst the other would absolutely see the logic in your virtual tricorder replacement!

For a far more interesting and detailed exploration of this kind of stuff,  I highly recommend Diaspora by Greg Egan. Very briefly, the story is set in a future where most of humanity exists as sapient software running on molecular computers. Of course it’s possible to download yourself into a robot avatar if you want to experience actual reality as opposed to virtual reality, and the biological remnants of humanity take particular pride in the fact that they’re living in physical reality in mortal bodies.

Quite a lot of the book is about those sorts of contrasting views. In a setting where most people can choose to literally run themselves at different speeds or hack themselves to change their entire outlook on life at will, what is reality? And is experiencing it one way any more or less valid than any other way.

Anyhow, this is going a bit off-topic. Here endeth the digression. :)

 

Edited by KSK
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59 minutes ago, KSK said:

At which point you need to send down an away team equipped with scanning equipment that’s independent of your ship’s sensors.

Spoiler

190822155230-robot-russia-space-mission-

Still sitting in orbit.

***

The star conqueror

Expectations

Spoiler

images?q=tbn:ANd9GcSGodl7yaLetpRFgNrVKUJ

Reality.

Spoiler

19e0s3.jpg

 

Edited by kerbiloid
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