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Aging Baby Boomers Spawn New Tech Markets
PreacherTom writes "With the generation of Baby Boomers starting to enter their 60's, 75 million Americans will cross that line in the next 20 years. For the first time, though, this group will be composed of people who have grown up with technology. Enter a new industry: tech for the elderly that provides greater independence and better health, with an eye to users' privacy and dignity. Some examples (with pictures) would be the Pill Pets, stuffed animals with LCD's that tell their owners when to take their medicine, and Aware Car, which provides electronic warning systems to compensate for losses in reflexes." A national coalition, the Center for Aging Services Technologies, was established in 2003. Intel is doing some imaginative work in the area of assistive technology.
Do people who are familiar with technology really need to hide their pill reminders in a stuffed animal? That sounds more patronizing than anything.
Regarding Pill Pets - I'm holding out for the real thing. I want Fido to get my pills and do my shopping for me. I'd imagine that implantable computers will probably be able to facilitate augmented pets that can do amazing things within the next 20 years. Whether or not ethical questions will kill the idea is another thing.
... I could just buy myself a helper penguin. Apparently penguins are much smarter than I thought.
Or
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Combine Roomba, audio microchips, and motion sensors and have an automated robot to yell to tell those damn kids to stay off the lawn.
And I'm only 36. I personally want- as a minimum- adaptive cruise control tied to a proximity alarm. I want infrared lasers shooting out 8 ways from my car, measuring distance- and a heads-up-display readout plus audible alarms.
This tech has been avilable since the 1980s, but we've yet to see it in consumer-grade vehicles. Why is that? I'm willing to bet mandatory use of such tech would save at least 2000-3000 lives every year on the highways; after all, it's not the speeding but the tailgating that kills you.
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
You probably shouldn't be driving, unless the car can drive itself, in which case you aren't driving anyway...
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Why is that? I'm willing to bet mandatory use of such tech would save at least 2000-3000 lives every year on the highways; after all, it's not the speeding but the tailgating that kills you.
There are lots of technologies out there that would almost certainly save lives if implemented, but aren't because they'd be too expensive.
In the scheme of things, human life has a measurable value, and it's not as high as some people would like to think.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
So now even Morgan Freeman isn't good enough to drive our elderly around, we have to get a computer to do it? When will this country finally see equality?
If you ask me, the best help old people can get would be a car that forced them to STAY AT HOME. Come on grandma, you can order your crochet needles on the Internet and they will be there faster than you can change your adult diaper. Please don't go cruising around with no attention to the traffic around you, in a boat that even your bifocals can't help you see end to end, causing pileups. It's bad enough there are TEENAGERS out there.
Overly-aware cars lead to a false sense of security, which leads to drivers not paying attention to driving. Now, **some** amount of technology - rear-view cameras in the dash, for instance - are good as they augment your vision in areas where you cannot possibly see. Take for example the removal of stop signs Ejbay and Ipswitch. Drivers are forced to be more alert and people are safer because of it.
had to be said
Pill Pets? This technology has been around for ages. They're called "helper monkeys."
That's sooo Osama bin Laden.
If we have implantable computers -- real brain/computer interfaces, not just electrodes wired to pleasure and pain centers -- I'd rather have one myself than give Fido one.
I have a long history of Alzheimers in my family, and unless there are some good treatments or augmentative systems at that point, I plan on playing Russian Roulette until I lose at the first sign of dementia.
But yeah, a dog that could buy me beer would be cool.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
Because of course, technology is a recent discovery. Fire was only discovered is the early 1920s, and as recently as the 1950s most Americans lived in caves and ate dirt.
Oh, and the world was black and white back then, too. When everything got colorized, old pictures and movies stayed the same, because they were color pictures of the black and white world.
So the elderly will have Aware Car, and the rest of us will need Aware-Aware Car to locate and avoid the masses of crazy old drivers in Aware Cars careening all over the highways.
Dark times lay ahead pedestrians everywhere.
So how long will it take before everybody decides that these expensive new technologies are actually entitlements that every human being has a right to?
Any sufficiently well-organized community is indistinguishable from Government.
Agnes heard on the radio a traffic report about a car going the wrong way down highway 69 causing accidents left and right. Alarmed because that is the route her husband Howard takes every morning, she calls him on the cell phone to warn him.
"Howard! Please be careful, honey. The radio is reporting that some maniac is driving the wrong way down route 69!"
To which an exasperated Howard replies, "One maniac!?? There's dozens of them!"
"I have as much authority as the pope, I just
don't have as many people who believe it" - George Carlin
So I'll never be "irregular" again.
That's sooo Osama bin Laden.
HoverRound Racers, edlerly players race around a Walmart on power chairs. Shoppers beware!
Instead of making cars safer for the elderly, how about eliminating the need for piloted driving totally? I'm guessing we could slash our over 40 thousands deaths per year to a mere fraction of this if all vehicles were autonomous. Now that cars can navigate autonomously as proven by the DARPA grand challenge and with assist by GPS and WiFi it should be orders of magnitude cheaper to put this in place than a decade ago -- we need only the political will to get the job done. No more drunk drivers and likely and end to grid lock. There might be fuel savings as well as cars are allowed to slip stream on one another in spacing to tight for humans to maintain at highway speeds. Autonomous micro-deliveries might reinvent shopping and food service.
It is time to embrace our technology enhanced future.
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" it's not the speeding but the tailgating that kills you."
Actually, it's the not paying attention that kills you.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
> With the generation of Baby Boomers starting to enter their 60's, 75 million
> Americans will cross that line in the next 20 years. For the first time,
> though, this group will be composed of people who have grown up with
> technology.
Because as we all know there was no technology before 1945. Back then everyone lived in caves and ate windfalls.
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
So it's a case of "Take your pills, or the stuffed animal gets it!!!" I thought something useful would happen, like some care giver being alerted. Instead, the stupid electronic pet dies, possibly along with the old person. Very helpful...
Medicate Me Elmo!
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As the boomers age, their ability to learn and remember new things will diminish (natural part of aging.) As a consequence, I think they're going to want a computer platform which is stable and unchanging; they aren't going to want the "latest and greatest" every couple of years. Plus, as reflexes get slower, people aren't going to need the latest superfast computer in order to play games. A real market for stability in the consumer marketplace will open up...
I predict there will be a company that makes its mark in building such a platform for the elderly that has a lifetime of 10-15 years rather than needing to be upgraded every few years. It will probably support email, web browsing, a basic platform for games (including support for those older games that the boomers grew up with and still want to play.) and some kind of remote monitoring to fix things if the user can't. Their business model will probably be built on maintenance fees ("buy this computer, technical support and maintenance is just $20 a month, and you'll never need to relearn the programs.")
My other prediction: Someone will start developing software games that adapt their speed to people's reflexes - as people get older, their reflexes will slow down but they'll still want to play the game. Imagine Tetris but with some intelligence to adjust to slower reflexes so that the game is still fun for people who have lost their twitchy trigger finger reflexes.
A version of Linux that's so simple they just click on ginormous "EMAIL" and "BROWSE WEB" icons on a desktop. Seriously, it's what my mom would actually use. Maybe throw in a "PICTURES" in there, in case they have kids sending them pictures.
Of course, you could set it up in the background, and it of course wouldn't have much functionality. And, the browser and email client skins would have to be customized a bit. Simple media players identical to current digital players would be great too.
I know there's a lot of talk about these, but I can't take it seriously. Not in a country where everyone wants to get on American Idol, or Survivor, or Springer, or some reality show. The reality is people will degrade themselves to no end to gain some fame (or infamy). And the Boomers are the worst of the lot.
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how about eliminating the need for piloted driving totally?
They already did that. Seriously, what would be the point to having auto-drive cars?
Uhhh... What train stops at your front door or Wal-Mart?
Letter To Iran
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your wife yelling at you. Yeah, that should do it.
Studies have been done that show that people are just as likely to be a technogeek or a technophone regardless of age. Maybe the baby boomers have grown up with more electronic technology than previous, but that doesn't mean that markets will really "open up."
There's also a stereotype that the older generation tends to be less computer savvy just because they didn't grow up with it. That's also not true, because I had 70 year old professors in college and relatives of my grandmother who are using computers like they were script kiddies and college software pirates. My Grandmother is a luddite, but that's part of her upbringing. She's been a luddite since she was 25, according to her husband.
It's true that if you grew up with computerized technology, you are more likely to understand something else you haven't seen before, but that's true with anything. There's a marketing myth that expands that which says that if you grew up with a specific technology, you are more likely to buy it. Rubbish. I know plenty of people who don't have cable and who don't own their own computer. These people are in their 20s and 30s!! They work with computers, because in business you almost always have to. But that doesn't mean people like it or have the desire to take it home.
My father is very intelligent and savvy, but has no desire to learn accounting software so he never uses a computer. My mother is much less savvy, having problems dealing with updates, error messages, and quirky technical problems, but finds things like shopping online very convenient and enjoys email. My father had much more computer exposure before my mother bought their current home computer, she's the one who's urging him to use it more. My parents both belong to that boomer generation.
My point is that age has nothing to do with it, and I suspect these companies that when target an age group just because they think they might be more technically savvy, they'll be in for a rude awakening as they fall flat on their face.
They'll also be competing for money of an age group (60+) which is historically known to be full of tightwads. Not because of personality, but because they are retired or near retirement and on a fixed income!! Unless the technology is a cheap robot which can do chores for the elderly and infirm, I don't see anyone making boku bucks selling "cool technogadgets" to seniors of any group.
"All great wisdom is contained in .signature files"
Just a switch on the floor of the passenger side and a beeper operable by said switch. Place spouse in passenger seat and drive somewhat faster than s/he would like. Voila!
One thing I saw in the Dec 11 2006 BusinessWeek was a cell phone that is *just* a phone (although it does have a 12-15 number memory feature). It's called the Jitterbug from GreatCall.
Wolde you bothe eate your cake, and have your cake?
They are marketed to the children of Old People who will be paying to care for the Old People. The Old People trusted their government and employers and didn't do independent retirement saving. Now they are screwed and the coming generations get to pick up the tab. The tab isn't just in money, but in time as well.
I almost feel sorry for those Old People who are broke...but then I remember how they've been voting for authorotarian candidates and I just can't muster up much sympathy. Let them lay in the beds they made.
Blar.
> I know there's a lot of talk about these, but I can't take it seriously. Not
> in a country where everyone wants to get on American Idol, or Survivor, or
> Springer, or some reality show.
_Everyone_? Are you quite certain of that?
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
>I'm not a two year old. I don't go on tirades.
>
>>It doesn't stop Rush Limbaugh or Bill O'Reilly.
Touche!
KFG
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child or adult?
every day http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
What would it take to do something on Myth Busters to create a car that could drive itself, safely, from home to work, and back?
The regularity of the Japanese tea ritual has been used to create a monitor for the elderly: a water boiler for making tea which sends a distress call if its user does not use at the expected time.
Stop worrying about the risks of nuclear power and start worrying about the risks of not using nuclear power.
'Unchanging' and 'no need to futz with it ever again' already equate to 'quality' when I am comparison shopping. Consider the Dodge marketing slogan a few years back, 'We've changed Everything.' Now one year afterward they had a whole fresh batch of billboards up around town stating "We've changed everything. Again." Translation to me the engineer: "We didn't get a single damn thing right last time." Guess who didn't buy Dodge?
I almost rolled in the aisle during 'I robot' when the (future world) advertisement proclaimed that the robot automatically downloads and installs its own patches and upgrades every day. I thought "what a piece of crap that would be! Talk about not ready for prime-time!"
I am a YUU-ZER of Linux (with a couple of w2K boxes for Adobe & multimedia stuff.) It is beyond me to dare upgrade the Linux boxes, the friend who helped me lives too far away now and so I am in Rural America with no support. My learning experience with Linux has been that if I get a single damn thing wrong I risk my entire home network going down, so better NOT TOUCH ANYTHING. The systems have been running fine (for my applications) for 2 - 4 years with no maintenance.
THAT'S QUALITY. So our our Mercedeses, which run flawlessly for years. The newer ones go 10,000 or more between service appointments (oil change, etc.)
A 'patch' or an 'upgrade' means to me that a software or computerized gizmo company shipped their product before the software engineers turned in their all their homework. This could be a sign of either unscrupulous, profits-first management (shut down & get out of town before the customer complaints become widely known) or LATE (as overworked, understaffed - poor management again) programming staff who couldn't finish up before time was called.
For the last 5 years I have been approaching computer-buying with a mindset of consumer durables: "if I choose wisely enough, this might be the LAST one I need to buy..." I am expecting a 10 year life out of motherboards and 15 year for chassis components. And yes, they are square and bone-white, none of this earring and tattoo era gelatinous-looking crap.
"It is time to embrace our technology enhanced future."
How do you expect to fund this?
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."