Turn Your Mobile Into a Scientific Tricorder with These Real-Life Apps: In Star Trek, tricorders are multifunctional devices that do everything from mass spectrometry and genetic analysis to communications. Now there are a host of mobile apps you can turn your phone into a scientific tool not entirely unlike what Data uses to analyze new planets.
In the Star Trek universe, tricorders have three default scanning functions — geological, meteorological and biological — though they come in more specific flavors, such as the medical tricorder.
