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Comment by spotman | Hacker News Reader

Good idea; bad execution.

It's an expensive to question to answer whether they are worth a second shot at this point.

My money is on no, the brand is tarnished, but some day the idea seems like it will resurface, and when it does whoever shows some more evidence of real technology will be quickly funded.

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But was it a good idea? There seems to be serious questions as to whether you can collect just a drop of blood and get accurate test results in the presence of tissue and extracellular fluid.

It's a good idea the same way UBeam is a good idea: it would be superb if it wasn't physically impossible.

That's not a good idea, it might be a good fantasy, an idea needs to be at least somehow feasible and not be contradicted by the laws of physics.

I've seen a lot of people say that, and I believe them. This idea just occurred to me though... what if you use a gentle vacuum to pull more blood out of the pinprick? I get the impression that you need a lot more volume to even out the variations, but if you collected 5x more, maybe there are a few more tests you could do.

The entire point was to not draw much blood. Even trying to solve the problem by drawing more blood would be a tacit admission of failure and a huge signaling risk.

For Theano sure, but maybe for someone else it could be worth a try. I think the draw was less how much blood needed to be drawn and more how invasive the needle is. You can always hide the blood from view if necessary.

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