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| DeForest Kelley as Star Trek's Dr. McCoy--Publicity photo |
There's pretty strong interest in developing a hand-held, "Star Trek"-style diagnostic tool. But it turns out the idea has also attracted at least one alleged fraudster. The New York Daily News reports that Howard Leventhal is expected to plead guilty to charges that he bilked a Florida financial group out of $800,000 over development of his "McCoy Home Health Tablet," named after the Dr. McCoy character on the show. He claimed that the device "instantly and effectively" could forward patient data to doctors and healthcare providers, even though federal agents believed he never actually built a functioning device, according to the criminal complaint cited by the story. At the same time, the idea has attracted the interest of legitimate device developers, including California's Scanadu, which is testing its Scout device that analyzes, tracks and sends a patient's vital signs after one 10-second scan. Story