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Aging Baby Boomers Spawn New Tech Markets
Posted by
kdawson
on Tue Dec 05, 2006 01:11 PM
from the grandma's-little-helper dept.
from the grandma's-little-helper dept.
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.
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Pill Pet? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Pill Pet? (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
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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
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Thank you, I 'preciate that. You, however, are not typical.
When you were 8 you went to school and took sports/violin/whatever because your teachers/parents wanted you to, not because you wanted to. You will find as you grow older that most people
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Well, I don't think that those people are reading slashdot, and of those who are, they are probably going to ignore you a
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This season's hot Christmas gift... (Score:4, Funny)
Parent
Waiting for augmented pets (Score:2)
Or
How about augmented humans? (Score:3, Interesting)
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.
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A lady walks into a bar with a bulldog on a leash. The bartender says, "hey! You can't bring that ugly, flea-ridden thing in here!"
The lady says, "How dare you talk about my dog that way!"
The bartender says, "I was talking to the dog!"
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*pauses*
What was I suposed to use this for?
Lawn-Bot (Score:2, Funny)
I want an aware car (Score:4, Interesting)
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.
Probably too expensive. (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
Parent
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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
Aware cars lead to less aware drivers (Score:5, Informative)
Parent
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That's great.
If you have trouble telling that the person front/left of you is about to switch into your lane, that a turn is coming up, or that the cars ahead of you are stopping, you might wa
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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.
Because the technology is going to be adapted to solve the problem from another angle: semi-autonomous roadside missile launchers. Using Doppler radar and lasers, the system will measure the speed and distances between cars and automatically take out tailgaters and speeders. Lock and load!
Re:I want an aware car (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
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as would any new car technology.
My point was that air bags killed people before they put the stickers on the car, but never a whisper of lawsuit.
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http://www.bmwusa.com/vehicles/7/750iSedan/Highli
It's called Active Cruise Control
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Even better is electronic stability control (ESC) which is available on many new cars. This automatically senses skids and applies selective braking to individual wheels (and in some cases throttle control) to correct skids.
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I remember reading about that when it was being beta tested on GE locomotives- each wheel is independantly driven by an electric motor, and thus the computer is able to compensate for the traction under each wheel in nanosecond timeframes.
wrong (Score:2)
Actually, it's the not paying attention that kills you.
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Normally I'm all for helping the disabled... (Score:3, Insightful)
You probably shouldn't be driving, unless the car can drive itself, in which case you aren't driving anyway...
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You shouldn't be flying unless you can see where you're going and/or know WTF you're doing, but that doesn't stop aircraft manufacturers from including collision, stall, and crash warning systems.
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Note: I'm saying this from the perspective (mine) of someone who would probably be able to get a license with such equipment, but cannot now.
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BTW I do believe that we need a better test to get a driver's license in this country. Not that the tests are the same from state to state, but perhaps they should (or anywhere there should be a federally mandated minimum.) I think it's way too easy to get a driver's license. Germany has higher speed limits, yet less accidents; licenses are harder to get, easier to lose, and they require more driver training than we do.
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You shouldn't be flying unless you can see where you're going and/or know WTF you're doing
Personally, I prefer the pilot to be able to see and know what he's doing.
Or is that why there are two of them in the cockpit?
Warning! You are approaching a farmer's market! (Score:2, Funny)
What did they do before technology? (Score:4, Funny)
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.
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The pigments in the paint were colorized along with the rest of the world. Of course, the artists in those days couldn't see what colors the paint would become. Ever wonder why all those old paintings have Jesus look European?
Aware-Aware Car (Score:3, Funny)
Dark times lay ahead pedestrians everywhere.
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Zero To Entitlement In... (Score:2, Insightful)
Age adjusted video racing games (Score:2)
Target Source Problems, Not Just Impact On Ederly (Score:2)
The usual misuse of the word "technology" (Score:2)
> 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.
Will "unchanging" become a marketing advantage? (Score:3, Insightful)
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.
Technology use has nothing to do with age (Score:3, Insightful)
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.
Japanese elderly tech: electronic teapot (Score:3, Interesting)
Reminds me of a joke.... (Score:3, Funny)
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!"
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