Inb4 big deal, I built a quadcorder.

Peter Jensen went and built himself a functional Star Trek tricorder because he could. And if you could, why wouldn't you? I know, I'm being pretty deep for a guy curled up on the bathroom floor. Haha -- a pube!

The Tricorder Mark 1 is, for all practical purposes, nearly identical to the device that we see in Star Trek, with the possible exception of being unable to reliably distinguish a Klingon from a Romulan. It's a self-contained, portable sensor system that can measure ambient temperature, humidity, air pressure, magnetic fields, surface temperatures, colors, ambient light level, ambient polarization, acceleration, direction, distance (ultrasonically), and of course it has a GPS receiver.

I hope you know I'm being honest when I say I'm ready and willing to put that in my butt and smuggle it into space-prison should Spock ever find himself locked up. "When would that ever be necessary?" No clue, but like the Boy Scouts say, be prepared. "You're practicing right now, aren't you?" With a brick.

Hit the jump for a video demo of the future.

This is a real, working, Star Trek-style Tricorder [dvice]

Thanks to beebs, who doesn't care what the outside air pressure is provided it's not 'crushing'.