Panasonic R&D 'House of the Future' To Open

Tomo Hiratsuka writes "On January 4 Panasonic opens its new R&D showcase in Tokyo, featuring the usual raft of environmentally friendly products and a take on how to make gadgets more usable for the graying societies of the future. Examples are thin on the ground at the minute but the company's Universal Design (UD) concept could be just the kind of simplification everybody's grandparents have been whining for over the holidays when faced with the space-age remotes on new-fangled DVD players and the like." Details can be found via CBS, and an official release.

Comments

Re:seriously

[Radish03]

In other news, a new worm, targetting networked microwaves, was released today. Victims have reported many burnt dinners. Norton Internet Security: Microwave Edition has been released to combat this virus.

Re:Instead of baby-proofing the house..

[MichaelSmith]

they old people-proofed it.

Aged care is enormously expensive, especially in Japan. You can save a lot of money with better automation.

I remember a researcher who was building automated systems to help elderly people. The user interface was a major problem until he hit on the idea of reusing the telephone. When the house systems need to tell the occupants comething (time to take your medication?) the phone rings and a voice delivers the information.

Also of interest: Japan's humanoid robots

[pomo monster]

As a Japanese (by ancestry) American (by birth), perhaps it's navel-gazing that piques my interest in this article from The Economist regarding the importance of cultural differences between Japan and the West in driving not only technological adoption, but innovation and development, too. Even if so, I bet plenty of people reading this Slashdot comment would find the article just as fascinating. The author's perspective, basically, is that people brought up in Japan's "culture of shame" are more comfortable interacting with machines than with people, while the Western "culture of guilt" (n.b. these terms are from elsewhere, and don't actually appear in the article), in which social fuckups aren't quite so stigmatized, doesn't need or even want technology to insulate individuals from one another. The first paragraph, which would probably be moderated flamebait in any other context:

HER name is MARIE, and her impressive set of skills comes in handy in a nursing home. MARIE can walk around under her own power. She can distinguish among similar-looking objects, such as different bottles of medicine, and has a delicate enough touch to work with frail patients. MARIE can interpret a range of facial expressions and gestures, and respond in ways that suggest compassion. Although her language skills are not ideal, she can recognise speech and respond clearly. Above all, she is inexpensive. Unfortunately for MARIE, however, she has one glaring trait that makes it hard for Japanese patients to accept her: she is a flesh-and-blood human being from the Philippines. If only she were a robot instead.

Like I say, an interesting take on things. If only the Economist Troll were to stop by to make it available to non-subscribers.

Technology: further isolating old people?

[OnanTheBarbarian]

It's a tough call - do developments like this merely improve life for already isolated old people, or do they make it easier (particularly on the conscience) to dump old people in isolated apartments with less and less social contact?

I'm torn between these two arguments. It's not like everyone treated old people warmly and integrated them into normal social life and then technology came along and messed it all up.

Finally, I'm dubious about how 'eco' all of these clean redesigns are. Visiting California, I'm always amused to hear about people with their new 'eco-mega-mansions' - big houses built really far from anywhere, at great expense, with lots of 'energy saving' features. They may save energy in the steady state - but the massive expenditure of energy and capital required to build them is significant. In a part of the world that isn't really experiencing much population growth, gadget-packed new developments (almost guaranteed to be obsolete and difficult in 10 or 20 years) probably aren't a very eco-friendly way to go (even if their theoretical characteristics in the 'steady state' look good).