Opinion: Medical tricorder symbolizes journey from sci-fi to future

Growing up, I was a huge fan of "Star Trek." A tech geek to the core, what wowed me the most were devices like the Tricorder. For non-Trekkies, the Tricorder was a handheld medical scanner that noninvasively analyzed a patient's cellular makeup and helped diagnose diseases. Recent developments are making the Tricorder jump from fiction to reality. Some even argue that the alpha version of the Tricorder already exists, its core being the smartphone in your pocket coupled with a multitude of smart devices powered by microelectromechanical systems and sensors.