Gender blood test?

Kristi • I'm a stay at home mom to a little boy who's 2 years old. I'm currently pregnant with my second who is due 10/17/16.
I'm 6 weeks pregnant with my second. So my friend is also pregnant(4 weeks ahead of me) and was talking about how she can't wait to find out the gender of her baby. I told her not to trust one ultrasound( with my first they got the gender wrong and my girl came out with balls and a pee pee) and she said she was planning on doing a gender blood test. Is there really such a thing? How accurate is it? When can they do it? Why wasn't I ever told of this?!?!