Star Trek realized? GE creates ultra-portable ultrasound scanner

Remember on Star Trek when they'd just wave that small device over someone and it would beep a bunch of times and the doctor had all the analysis they needed? Seemed nifty and useful at the time, just like the little cell phones they had that seemed outrageous at the time -- and now companies are working harder and harder to get the Star Trek tricorder to become a reality. GE has another salvo in that battle, the LOGIQ e.

Sadly, their name for it is not nearly as cool, the little 'e' hanging off the end looks like a typo, but I guess medical scanning technology probably doesn't get test marketed to the extent that cola does. And it isn't that much worse than the Nintendo Wii.

The LOGIQ e is a small notebook-sized ultrasound scanner that can enable people to get an image on the fly, for instance, at emergency scenes or when doing rounds. It's not quite tricorder-sized, as you can see from this picture of an older LOGIQ laptop-sized device that is the predecessor to the LOGIQ e.

GE is on record as aiming to double sales of the portable ultrasound market with the rollout of the 'e' series of the device. This comes on the heels of other portable medical diagnostic equipment on which GE's medical section is working. As these devices get smaller and smaller, one can imagine a multi-purpose PDA-sized device that's about the size of a tricorder. Star Trek may be more realistic than we ever thought.