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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.
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.
Its not the value of human life that makes such tech prohibitively expensive, its the cost of litigation. Should such life saving technology fail, there are those that would just as soon litigate against the auto manufacturer than say "oh well, that is how life goes sometimes" because whenever possible, people will blame their bad driving on someone else.
I've said it before, so here we go again, when all vehicles are able to drive themselves, and not before, will it be safe to have autopilot driven vehicles and vehicles that can compensate for the ever changing and moody unpredictability of human vehicle operators.
Not only would IR lasers not be sufficient in many cases, but could lead to false positive identifications, and thus cause an accident in which poor aunt Rita died, and now automaker such n such is no longer in business. Where life and limb are at risk, it is (so far) way safer to trust the human brain than a computer, even if said computer was comparable to Cray computers. This is why NASA still sends humans into space. The technology is still not sufficient to replace the human brain and senses.
That is not to say that things are not getting better, just not yet good enough to replace the human. The vehicle that will parallel park itself is doing so in a limited domain. The same sensors and computer would not be sufficient to handle highway driving, not even as an early warning system of sorts.
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Clearly you have never seen some nice old lady all atwitter at one of those cute furry mouse-looking covers for a computer mouse.
I have, but she was born before the Wright Bros. flew under power.
On the other hand I know 20 year olds who knit doofey covers for Kleenex boxes, but they don't expect to get their email on their Kleenex box either.
In any case it's the 20 year old knitting Kleenex box covers who's going to grow old and go all atwitter over a teddy bear pill reminder. It isn't because she's old, it's because she's doofey. Patting me on the head because I'm old because she is doofey is condescending. I didn't put up with that crap as a child, I'm not going to put with it in my second childhood. Children are people too, they aren't just little adults, but they are people. Old people, likewise, aren't just big children even though some of them act like it.
Me, I was born before an artificial satellite orbited. I grew up knowing how to knit, but I also grew up with Erector Sets and electronic experiment sets. The biggest section in a toy department was likely to be the Gilbert science stuff and they let us buy real chemicals by the pound right over the counter. Warm and fuzzy meant rockets with tailfins and chrome.
In a lot of ways us baby boomers are far more comfortable with technology in its raw state than "you kids," because you mostly buy gadgets, we played around in the guts of stuff and invented the gadgets you play with. Hand us a teddy bear pill reminder and we're likely to rip its little brain out to see what we can do with it. I've got nothin' against teddy bears as teddy bears. I've got a couple. But I've also got a laptop; and I know how to use it to remind me of things.
But yeah, choice is good. Anyone who wants to be all doofey about it can go for it, just don't be bringin' that shit near me, because it's my choice not to be condescended to.
KFG