SEOUL: Pre-orders for Samsung Electronics Co Ltd's flagship Galaxy S8 smartphone have exceeded those of its predecessor S7, mobile business chief Koh Dong-jin said on Thursday, suggesting many consumers were unfazed by last year's Galaxy Note 7 fires.
The S8, which begin sales in South Korea, the United States and Canada on April 21, will be central to the South Korean firm's recovery from the swift withdrawal of the Note 7 phablet.
The new device has been well-received, and some investors and analysts said it could set a first-year sales record for the smartphone giant.
"It's still a bit early, but initial response to the pre-orders that have begun at various places across the world have been better than expected," Koh said at a media briefing.
The S8 will be the safest Galaxy smartphone to date due to safety measures implemented to avoid the battery failures that caused some Note 7s to spontaneously combust, he said.
Analysts expect Samsung to record its best-ever quarterly profit in April-June, buoyed by strong S8 sales and a memory chip market boom that is widely expected to deliver record revenue for the industry this year. The new device, equipped with either 5.8-inch or 6.2-inch (14.73 cm or 15.75 cm) curved screens, sports the largest screens to date among all of Samsung's flagship phones due to a redesign.
Koh also said the firm plans to use the S8 to try to recover in China, where Samsung has been out of the top five vendors in recent years due to heightened competition from local rivals such as Huawei Technologies Co Ltd.
He said Samsung will aim to regain market share in China even if it takes time, without elaborating on specific strategies.
Susan bought her 6-year-old son John an iPad when he was in first grade. “I thought, ‘Why not let him get a jump on things?’ ” she told me during a therapy session. John’s school had begun using the devices with younger and younger grades and his technology teacher had raved about their educational benefits so Susan wanted to do what was best for her sandy-haired boy who loved reading and playing baseball.
She started letting John play different educational games on his iPad. Eventually, he discovered Minecraft, which the technology teacher assured her was “just like electronic Lego.” Remembering how much fun she had as a child building and playing with the interlocking plastic blocks, Susan let her son Minecraft his afternoons away
At first, Susan was quite pleased. John seemed engaged in creative play as he explored the cube-world of the game. She did notice that the game wasn’t quite like the Legos that she remembered — after all, she didn’t have to kill animals and find rare minerals to survive and get to the next level with her beloved old game. But John did seem to really like playing and the school even had a Minecraft club, so how bad could it be
Still, Susan couldn’t deny she was seeing changes in John. He started getting more and more focused on his game and losing interest in baseball and reading while refusing to do his chores. Some mornings he would wake up and tell her that he could see the cube shapes in his dreams.
Although that concerned her, she thought her son might just be exhibiting an active imagination. As his behavior continued to deteriorate, she tried to take the game away but John threw temper tantrums. His outbursts were so severe that she gave in, still rationalizing to herself over and over again that “it’s educational.”
Then, one night, she realized that something was seriously wrong.
“I walked into his room to check on him. He was supposed to be sleeping — and I was just so frightened…”
She found him sitting up in his bed staring wide-eyed, his bloodshot
eyes looking into the distance as his glowing iPad lay next to him. He
seemed to be in a trance. Beside herself with panic, Susan had to shake
the boy repeatedly to snap him out of it. Distraught, she could not
understand how her once-healthy and happy little boy had become so
addicted to the game that he wound up in a catatonic stupor.
There’s a reason that the most tech-cautious parents are tech designers and engineers. Steve Jobs was a notoriously low-tech parent. Silicon Valley tech executives and engineers enroll their kids in no-tech Waldorf Schools. Google founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page went to no-tech Montessori Schools, as did Amazon creator Jeff Bezos and Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales.
Many parents intuitively understand that ubiquitous glowing screens are having a negative effect on kids. We see the aggressive temper tantrums when the devices are taken away and the wandering attention spans when children are not perpetually stimulated by their hyper-arousing devices. Worse, we see children who become bored, apathetic, uninteresting and uninterested when not plugged in.
But it’s even worse than we think.
We now know that those iPads, smartphones and Xboxes are a form of digital drug. Recent brain imaging research is showing that they affect the brain’s frontal cortex — which controls executive functioning, including impulse control — in exactly the same way that cocaine does. Technology is so hyper-arousing that it raises dopamine levels — the feel-good neurotransmitter most involved in the addiction dynamic — as much as sex.
This addictive effect is why Dr. Peter Whybrow, director of neuroscience at UCLA, calls screens “electronic cocaine” and Chinese researchers call them “digital heroin.” In fact, Dr. Andrew Doan, the head of addiction research for the Pentagon and the US Navy — who has been researching video game addiction — calls video games and screen technologies “digital pharmakeia”
That’s right — your kid’s brain on Minecraft looks like a brain on drugs. No wonder we have a hard time peeling kids from their screens and find our little ones agitated when their screen time is interrupted. In addition, hundreds of clinical studies show that screens increase depression, anxiety and aggression and can even lead to psychotic-like features where the video gamer loses touch with reality.
In my clinical work with over 1,000 teens over the past 15 years, I have found the old axiom of “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure” to be especially true when it comes to tech addiction. Once a kid has crossed the line into true tech addiction, treatment can be very difficult. Indeed, I have found it easier to treat heroin and crystal meth addicts than lost-in-the-matrix video gamers or Facebook-dependent social media addicts
According to a 2013 Policy Statement by the American Academy of Pediatrics, 8- to 10 year-olds spend 8 hours a day with various digital media while teenagers spend 11 hours in front of screens. One in three kids are using tablets or smartphones before they can talk. Meanwhile, the handbook of “Internet Addiction” by Dr. Kimberly Young states that 18 percent of college-age internet users in the US suffer from tech addiction
According to a 2013 Policy Statement by the American Academy of Pediatrics, 8- to 10 year-olds spend 8 hours a day with various digital media while teenagers spend 11 hours in front of screens. One in three kids are using tablets or smartphones before they can talk. Meanwhile, the handbook of “Internet Addiction” by Dr. Kimberly Young states that 18 percent of college-age internet users in the US suffer from tech addiction
Coming in two sizes, it's expected to hit stores in April.
Lenovo has added a new entry-level VR-ready computer to its ThinkStation line. The Lenovo ThinkStation P320 is scheduled to go on sale at the end of April, with official pricing yet to be announced.
The desktop PC, which will be available as a full-size tower and in a smaller chassis, will offer Intel's latest Xeon processors and up to Core i7 processors. It can also house up to 64GB DDR4 memory and support the latest Nvidia Quadro graphics cards, including support for dual Nvidia Quadro P1000 GPUs in the littler version.
The ThinkStation P320 can be easily tweaked to fit your needs too, thanks to Lenovo's "Flex Module," which allows easy customization to add connectivity options such as Thunderbolt 3 or a media card reader
Samsung hoped its new battery safety procedures would inspire the phone industry. Good luck with that.
Months after the Galaxy Note 7 debacle, the topic remains too hot for the rest of the wireless industry to handle.
With Samsung's Galaxy S8 to launch next week, a renewed discussion of the Note 7, which had an unhealthy tendency to catch fire and which had to be recalled, is inevitable.
Samsung opened that door in January when it embarked on a mea culpa tour. Beyond spelling out the cause of the overheating problem in its popular phone, the company unveiled an eight-point battery check system it said surpassed industry practices, and it invited rivals to follow its model.
The upcoming Galaxy S8 was among the first phones to go through the new process.
"This is another opportunity to definitely increase the level of standard of excellence regarding lithium ion batteries, not just for Samsung, but throughout the entire industry," D.J. Koh, Samsung's mobile chief, said in an interview in January, touting the system as a potential global standard.
But two months after the introduction, what's the industry response? A collective shrug.
Interviews with phone makers and carriers found that while all placed a high priority on safety, few would talk specifically about Samsung's new battery check process or the idea of adopting it for themselves. Many expressed confidence that the processes they had in place were already sufficient.
Thanks to the Note 7, the explosive nature of lithium ion batteries is once again a fresh worry for consumers. Overheating batteries were behind all those hoverboards catching fire, and even temporarily delayed the rollout of the Boeing 787 Dreamliner. Apple, too, dealt with battery fires, even if it blamed the cause on external damage. For Samsung, the world's largest phone maker, the recall was one heck of a black eye
''One day when I was driving, the [Note 7] started smoking, and I threw it out my window," said Matt Gioia, a 31-year-old who said he would not go back to Samsung because of the incident and the lack of customer service follow-up.
For the many smaller, lesser-known companies out there, the heat from a similar battery controversy could be fatal. And if it can happen to a company as powerful as Samsung, it can happen to anyone.
"I'm 100 percent convinced that current battery tests would have not detected these failures," said Gerbrand Ceder, a professor of materials science and engineering for the University of California at Berkeley, one of the independent experts Samsung appointed to advise it on batteries.
That's not to say these others aren't quietly looking into the issue.
"I'm sure the engineers will be looking at the info Samsung made public," said a spokesman for a high-profile phone maker who asked not to be identified. "I'm sure every [phone maker] will be doing the same."
Just don't hold your breath for any public declarations of support for the Samsung way.
A Samsung spokesman said the company began speaking with industry organizations in January and plans to continue sharing its findings from its battery research with the industry
Elon Musk believes we are ready for a mind meld, but instead of connecting the brains of two Vulcans, a la "Star Trek," the billionaire entrepreneur wants to link human brains with computers.
The CEO of SpaceX and Tesla Motors is exploring just such a connection through another company he has launched, called Neuralink, The Wall Street Journal reported Monday. Musk has taken an active role in developing what he calls "neural lace" technology, which involves installing tiny electrodes in the brain to transmit thoughts.
It wasn't clear what type of products the company will produce, but they are expected to have medical applications, such treating as brain disorders like epilepsy or major depression. The approach could mirror that of deep brain stimulation, which uses a surgically implanted, battery-operated medical device to treat neurological symptoms, most commonly Parkinson's effects such as tremor, rigidity, stiffness, slowed movement, and walking problems.
Musk did not immediately respond to a request for comment, but he teased a couple of times in recent months that an announcement might be coming soon. "Making progress [on neural lace]," he tweeted in August "maybe something to announce in a few months." In January, he tweeted that an announcement could come as early as February.
NEW DELHI: A group of telecom service providers has sought the government's urgent intervention in resolving a peculiar glitch associated with some dual-SIM 4G smartphones that's eroding the quality of services provided by them.
The Cellular Operators' Association of India, which includes Bharti Airtel, Vodafone India, Idea Cellular and Reliance Jio Infocomm, said there was a problem with 4G-enabled, dual-SIM smartphones using MediaTek's chipset: the flow of data in the primary 4G SIM slot was hampered when a 4G LTE-only SIM was placed in the second slot, meant for 2G SIMs.
Smartphone makers must be mandated to fix the issue using an over-the-air upgrade in the next four weeks or withdraw such devices from the market, COAI director general Rajan Mathews proposed in a letter to the secretary of the Department of Telecommunications and the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India.
Airtel added 1.2 million subscribers in February, more than Vodafone, Idea: COAI
Placing a 4G LTE-only SIM in the second slot "significantly deteriorates the throughput of any other operator's 4G SIM present in the main slot by as much as 40%," the COAI said in the letter.
However, there was no such impact if a 4G LTE-only SIM was put in the first slot and a 4G SIM was in the second slot. MediaTek, the Taiwan-based chipset manufacturer, acknowledged there were recent reports of technical glitches in handsets and said the company is treating the issue with utmost priority.
"We are working closely with all the telecom operators to get to the bottom of this. MediaTek's solutions are globally compliant and completely adhere with global standard bodies-defined guidelines," a MediaTek India representative said in an emailed statement to ET.
At present, only Reliance Jio Infocomm has a 4G LTE-only network in the country.
Jio offer: Any decision that TDSAT makes, will give a sense of clarity going forward, says Rajan Mathews, COAI
The industry body urged the government to ensure that devices with 2G SIM slots are phased out in the next six months. Smartphones with dual SIMs must have both slots configured to match the device standard of 3G or 4G, it said. The COAI sought an outright ban on any mobile device found to be adversely impacting data throughput. It urged the government to mandate device testing and certification for compliance in the Indian environment before launching them.
The problem has been observed only in devices with Media-Tek chipsets. "The analysis so far points to a chipset specific implementation by MediaTek. It is estimated that MediaTek chipsets are present in more than 35% of the smartphones in the country," the COAI said.
The association said that in the past, the onus of calls drops and quality of service had been laid solely on telecom service providers, while ignoring the role of devices and handsets. .
The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that 285 million people are visually impaired worldwide. 70 million people need a wheelchair. Another 360 million people globally have moderate to profound hearing loss. Globally, more than 1 billion people need one or more assistive products.
The global elderly and disabled assistive devices market was valued at $14 billion in 2015 and is expected to surpass $26 billion by 2024, according to Coherent Market Insights. It is a sizable market with an incredibly diverse set of needs. Many products have to be customized which is why 3D printing is an ideal way to study and solve some of it.
Photo from MatterHackers Envision the Future Design Challeng
MatterHackers, one of the largest 3D printing retailers in the U.S., wants to put a big dent in those numbers by encouraging inspiring, low-cost or free, assistive device models that people can 3D print or build from some other material. Officially, the “Envision The Future Design Challenge” is to create educational tactile models and assistive devices for the blind and visually impaired.
WHO defines assistive technology as any product that helps maintain or improve an individual function. Hearing aids, wheelchairs, eyeglasses, prostheses, pill organizers, and memory aids are all examples of assistive devices or products. You do not have to go far in 3D printing circles to find solutions or at least potential ideas to solve these sorts of problems or issues -- and I have written about many of them -- from custom insoles (orthotics) to hearing aids to haptic feedback in a glove (one of my very first posts over 5 years ago).
With an aging global population and a rise in noncommunicable diseases, more than 2 billion people will need at least 1 assistive product by 2050, with many older people needing 2 or more, according to a WHO assistive device fact sheet.
With an aging global population and a rise in noncommunicable diseases, more than 2 billion people will need at least 1 assistive product by 2050, with many older people needing 2 or more, according to a WHO assistive device fact sheet.
One of the more famous assistive device designs, not part of the MatterHackers design challenge, comes from the e-NABLE Community: the “Iron Man” video tells the story of Robert Downey Jr. giving an Ironman prosthetic hand to a child. Awesome video. That design was developed by the UCF Armory (University of Central Florida), led by Albert Manero, the Limbitless Arm was e-NABLE’s first myoelectric design. The Limbitless Arm is licensed under the Creative Commons-Attribution-Non-Commercial license. Success stories like these inspire more people to realize how accessible 3D technology is making incremental and exponential improvements possible -- that you might have an idea that could change the world for you or someone else.
Given that so many people have a need for assistive devices and products across a wide range; 3D printing is one of the best ways to approach the problems. If you look at an organization like Enabling The Future, that crowdsources the making of 3D printable prosthetic hands, a design challenge can provide new ideas and solutions that might not otherwise make it to market. Plus, it spreads the word and inspires more people, design-minded people, to consider how they might approach this massive market need and opportunity.
Additional resources:
Briefly, because everyone wants to know about prizes when there's a challenge like the Envision The Future Design Challenge, there are two categories: Youth (under 18) and Adults (18 and over). Each category will have 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place winners with prizes sponsored by LulzBot and MatterHackers. Youth grand prize is a Lulzbot Mini 3D Printer (don’t let the name fool you; it is a decent size printer). Adult grand prize is a Lulzbot TAZ 6 (larger print area than the Mini). Both grand prize categories also come with a MatterControl Touch T10 - 10.6" Standalone 3D Printer Controller – basically a tablet you can use to run a printer without needing a full computer. The challenge runs from March 20, 2017 through May 8, 2017 and the full details are here.
Entrepreneur Bryan Johnson says he wanted to become very rich in order to do something great for humankind.
Last year Johnson, founder of the online payments company Braintree, starting making news when he threw $100 million behind Kernel, a startup he founded to enhance human intelligence by developing brain implants capable of linking people’s thoughts to computers.
Johnson isn’t alone in believing that “neurotechnology” could be the next big thing. To many in Silicon Valley, the brain looks like an unconquered frontier whose importance dwarfs any achievement made in computing or the Web.
According to neuroscientists, several figures from the tech sector are currently scouring labs across the U.S. for technology that might fuse human and artificial intelligence. In addition to Johnson, Elon Musk has been teasing a project called “neural lace,” which he said at a 2016 conference will lead to “symbiosis with machines.” And Mark Zuckerberg declared in a 2015 Q&A that people will one day be able to share “full sensory and emotional experiences,” not just photos. Facebook has been hiring neuroscientists for an undisclosed project at Building 8, its secretive hardware division.
As these people see it, computing keeps achieving new heights, but our ability to interface with silicon is stuck in the keyboard era. Even when speaking to a computer program like Alexa or Siri, you can convey at most about 40 bits per second of information and only for short bursts. Compare that to data transfer records of a trillion bits per second along a fiber-optic cable.
“Ridiculously slow,” Musk complained.
But it turns out that connecting to the brain isn’t so easy. Six months after launching Kernel amid a media blitz, Johnson says he’s dropped his initial plans for a “memory implant,” switched scientific advisors, hired a new team, and decided to instead invest in developing a more general-purpose technology for recording and stimulating the brain using electrodes.
Johnson says the switch-up is part of trying something new. “If you look at the key contributing technologies of society, the ones with the most impact, like rockets, the Internet, biology—there was a transition point from academia to the private sector, and for the most part neuroscience hasn’t made that jump,” says Johnson. “The most critical element is timing, when is the right time to pursue this.”
Memory implants
After making a fortune selling Braintree to eBay for $800 million in 2013, Johnson, now 39, reportedly sought the advice of nearly 200 people on how to invest his new wealth. He settled on neurotechnology and, last August, he announced he’d create Kernel and build the first neural prosthetic for human intelligence enhancement.
But Johnson’s business plan was extremely vague; one scientist called it “metaphysical.” Kernel’s website was plastered with book-jacket-like endorsements from scientific celebrities including J. Craig Venter and Tim O’Reilly, extolling his “great” and “serious” commitment to understanding human intelligence, not to mention the impressive $100 million he later promised to invest in Kernel.
Bryan Johnson
The reality is that interfacing with the brain is tough: electronics irritate its tissue and stop working after a while, and no one will get brain surgery just in order to send an e-mail. What’s more, even if you can communicate with the brain, you might not know what it is saying.
“Billionaires entering the broader neurotechnology field are very optimistic and may overlook details of the problem, which is we are far away from meaningfully understanding the brain,” says Konrad Kording, a Northwestern University neuroscientist who has advised Johnson. “But neurotechnology allows you to work on the most interesting questions in the universe while potentially making money, and so that is exciting.”
Johnson’s persona is part buttoned-down Mormon missionary (he once was one), part hard-driving door-to-door credit-processing salesman (he was that too), but now, with his new wealth, he’s also taken on the mantle of a technology prophet. At a 2016 startup conference in Silicon Valley, he showed up with his hair unbrushed, wearing a T-shirt with holes in it, and gave a wide-ranging lecture on human tool use from prehistory into the present, arguing that now “our very existence is programmable” through biology and machine interfaces.
Kernel’s original technology was a memory prosthesis, developed by Theodore Berger of the University of Southern California, who until recently was also the company’s chief scientific officer. Berger’s technology (see “10 Breakthrough Technologies: Memory Implants”) is a way of recording memories of rats and monkeys, storing these patterns on a computer chip, and re-delivering them to the hippocampus. One version of the setup, Berger says, has been tested in a handful of human patients undergoing brain surgery for other reasons.
But a mere six months after starting Kernel, Berger is no longer part of the company, and memory implants are no longer part of Kernel’s near-term plans. Johnson and Berger both confirmed the separation.
Berger’s vision, according to several people, was too complex, too speculative, and too far from becoming a medical reality, while Johnson hoped to see a return on his investment sometime soon. “They have a new direction, but we’re still talking,” says Berger. “The basic reason is it was going to take too long. It’s one thing to think about this and quite another to do it.”
Johnson says he concluded that Berger’s work “is really interesting, but not an entry point” into a commercially viable business.
Brain interface
By last November, Johnson was already exploring a pivot for his company, meeting with Christian Wentz, head of a small Cambridge startup, Kendall Research Systems, that sells equipment for recording in the neurons of mice and other animals. The company spun out of the laboratory of Edward Boyden, a professor at MIT who invents new ways of analyzing brain tissue.
In February, Johnson acquired Wentz’s company (for an undisclosed sum) and with it brought in a new team, including Wentz and Adam Marblestone, a noted theorist of both the limitations and possibilities of brain interfaces, who will become chief scientific officer. Both are former Boyden lab members, as are two other Kernel scientists, Caroline Moore-Kochlacs and Jake Bernstein.
Johnson says Kernel will now develop a “generalized human electrophysiology platform”—that is, a flexible way of measuring the electrical impulses from many neurons at once, and stimulating them, too. The eventual objective is to use such electronics to treat major diseases, like depression or Alzheimer’s. “It’s for clinical use,” he says. “We are a for-profit company.”
Wentz says as part of the acquisition he and Johnson agreed that much more R&D on brain interfaces will probably be needed. “We have a very sober view of what can and can’t be done,” Wentz says. “We are not naïve.” He calls Kernel’s effort a “15-year endeavor,” although he adds that “we want to do in that period what has been done in the last 100 years.”
With the pivot, Johnson is effectively jumping on an opportunity created by the Brain Initiative, an Obama-era project which plowed money into new schemes for recording neurons. That influx of cash has spurred the formation of several other startups, including Paradromics and Cortera, also developing novel hardware for collecting brain signals. As part of the government brain project, the defense R&D agency DARPA says it is close to announcing $60 million in contracts under a program to create a “high-fidelity” brain interface able to simultaneously record from one million neurons (the current record is about 200) and stimulate 100,000 at a time.
“It’s time for neuroscience to graduate from academia to a general neuroscience platform,” says Johnson. With such a technology “a whole range of new applications—a lot of white space—would open up.”
Johnson declined to describe the specifics of Kernel’s technological approach to connecting with the brain, as did Boyden and Wentz. However, the team members have been working on well-identified problems. Wentz has been involved with developing electronics for high-speed reading of data emitted by wireless implants. Already, the flow of information that can be collected from a mouse’s brain in real time outruns what a laptop computer can handle. The team also needs a way to interface with the human brain. Boyden’s lab has worked on several concepts to do so, including needle-shaped probes with tiny electrodes etched onto their surface. Another idea is to record neural activity by threading tiny optical fibers through the brain’s capillaries, an idea roughly similar to Musk’s neural lace.
More sophisticated means of reading and writing to the brain are seen as potential ways to treat psychiatric disorders. Under a concept that Boyden calls “brain coprocessors,” it may be possible to create closed-loop systems that detect certain brain signals—say, those associated with depression—and shock the brain to reverse them. Some surgeons and doctors funded by another DARPA program are in the early stages of determining whether serious mental conditions can be treated in this way (see “A Shocking Way to Fix the Brain”).
Boyden says Johnson’s $100 million makes a big difference to how he and his students view the entrepreneur’s goals. “A lot of neurotechnology has come and gone. But one thing is that it’s very expensive,” he says. “The inventing is expensive, the clinical work is expensive. It’s not easy. And here is someone putting money into the game.”
Two concurrent trends—the shifting demographics toward an aging population and the emergence of dramatic new technologies—are converging to create an intensified focus on improving the quality of life for seniors.
“Outthink Aging,” a report from IBM and the Consumer Technology Association Foundation released in September 2016, outlines the challenges of meeting the needs of the aging population and addresses the potential for leveraging new technologies for seniors that will extend their independence while also helping them to better manage everyday activities and connect more meaningfully with loved ones.
The demographic trends driving this need are global in nature and will intensify in the coming decades. By 2050, according to United Nations statistics cited in the report, more than one out of five people will be age 60 and older.
“Technology does not replace the human element, but it’s a tool that will enable the growing aging demographic and caregivers to better our lives as we age,” says Steve Ewell, executive director of the CTA Foundation.
The Consumer Technology Association, which represents more than 2,000 technology companies, launched the foundation in 2012 to focus on how technology can help older adults and people with disabilities. Its partnership with IBM, announced in January 2016, is a major step forward in fulfilling that mission. “New partnerships between industry, non-profits, academia, government, and the general public will form to accomplish these goals,” Ewell reports.
Independence with Technology
Research from AARP and others confirms that the vast majority of elders want to remain independent for as long as possible, and for many, this translates into a desire to remain in their homes. “Technology can be used to help people essentially augment their ability to age in place,” says Susann Keohane, Global Research Leader, Strategic Initiative on Aging at IBM.
From a caregiving perspective, technology allows caregivers to stay on top of their parent’s needs—for instance, with connected devices and ambient sensors that can help provide valuable information on how well someone is going about their day by monitoring changes in the environment around them.
“This is not meant as a replacement for human care,” Keohane stresses, “but as a means of providing more insightful information that will allow someone to better care for their loved one or their elder client.”
Technology also has the ability to identify signs that a transition to another type of living environment is warranted. “A lot of these major transitions that occur in life happen from an emotional standpoint—i.e., ‘Mom, I’m worried about you, you’re alone, what if something happens?” Keohane observes. “Technology allows you to get a more analytic view.”
Addressing Senior Concerns
“Outthink Aging” defines four essential aspects reflecting the core desires of an aging population as they relate to living an independent life:
Health: access to high-quality healthcare and services that encourage physical/cognitive health
Connection: staying connected with family, friends and the community
Security: protection against theft and financial fraud, while also having personal safety in the home
Dignity and independence: which includes striking a balance between the desire for privacy and the need for support
As a means of addressing those four issues, one area that’s getting attention is the Internet of Things—or IoT—which is a collective term to describe devices that are able to send and receive data. As an example, Ewell cites devices in the home that can be used to control lighting, the thermostat, and security through phone, voice control or another type of interaction.
“One of the exciting things about these technologies is that the are not necessarily being designed to address aging specifically; they’re general consumer technologies that happen to have features that can create greater independence for someone who’s older or has a disability,” Ewell explains.
One benefit of cognitive technology is the ability to help individuals stay secure, Ewell explains. “For instance, if someone wakes up in the middle of the night and they are worried—‘Did I close the garage door or lock the front door?’—these devices can control or confirm that it’s taken care of.”
Such technology also can be helpful for caregivers who need affirmation that everything is all right in the loved one’s home. However, Ewell cautions, “It needs to be done with the right degree of privacy, so that it’s really a benefit to the older adult and not just a matter of keeping watch.”
Combined with cognitive computing, IoT also can be useful in an assisted living setting. To gain more insights into this, IBM and the Avamere Family of Companies recently announced a six-month research study that will apply the power of IBM cognitive computing to improving eldercare at Avamere’s senior living and health centers. By analyzing data streaming from sensors, Avamere hopes to identify risks and gain insights with the goal of minimizing hospital readmission rates.
An Intriguing Future
As part of its continuing partnership, the CTA Foundation and IBM have undertaken a new joint initiative: self-driving transportation. Joining them in this endeavor is a third partner, Local Motors, which launched Olli in 2016 as the world’s first cognitive self-driving vehicle powered by IBM Watson technology. The partners are working together to crowd-source new cognitive technology solutions to support this initiative.
Concerns about driverless safety and accessibility are already being addressed. “Many of the vehicles developed today have a wide array of built-in sensors that enable the vehicles to be aware of challenges from other vehicles on the road,” Ewell reports. “These advanced sensors, and the fast reaction times of the vehicles, allow self-driving vehicles to be more likely to identify and avoid potential issues than human drivers.”
For an elderly population, Ewell observes that there may be opportunities to change the driver role into one of a concierge or assistant who can help with passengers’ specific needs.
This is just one of many intriguing technologies that have potential for improving older people’s lives. As Keohane observes, the challenges of aging come primarily from a loss of ability over time. “Those of us who are working on these issues have an accessibility background. We know how to make technology work for people who have disabilities. In the case of elders whose abilities are changing, we can help them with technology that meets them where they’re at in life.”
In SBS’s Simon Reeve’s Big Life Fix, designers and inventors work together to create ingenious solutions to everyday problems. The first episode features Australian inventor Haiyan Zhang, who changes the life of a young woman living with Parkinson’s disease with the Emma Watch.
We talked to Zhang about how she created the watch, the thrill of creating technology that actually helps people and what it’s like to be a woman and minority working in science…
You’re currently a Director at Microsoft Research, Cambridge. Can you tell me a little more about what this involves?
I lead a team inventing technologies for new kinds of play experiences called “Connected Play”. We’re exploring how to create magical experiences between kids, their toys and the digital world.
You’re originally from Australia. How did you wind up at Cambridge?
I left Melbourne in 2000, after finishing uni and working for a year as a software engineer. At first it was just to see the world and explore what was out there – 17 years later I’m still exploring. I’ve lived in Canada, Italy, San Francisco and have called the UK home for the last 9 years.
As a kid, were you always inventing things? Was it always your plan to go into the sciences?
I did my undergraduate degree at Monash University studying Computer Science and it was just something I fell into as I’d always been into technology and computers. I worked as a software engineer for a few years and then wanted to expand my horizons into design and thinking about what products we should be creating. I did a Masters degree in Design in Italy, which covered everything from designing products and services to tinkering with electronics.
Is it difficult being a woman in the world of computer science? Are there moments when you feel like you don’t get the same opportunities and respect as your male colleagues?
I’ve faced challenges both as a woman and an ethnic minority in the working world, I’ve also found those challenges shift slightly across continents. It’s not easy but in a 20-year career I’ve figured out how to just get on with things.
I remember in my high school years in Melbourne there was always an emphasis on the equality of genders in the workplace and it instilled in me a sense that I would be able to achieve anything and there would be no glass ceilings. I continue to operate with that mindset and I work very hard to draw attention to situations where that is not the case.
How do we encourage more women into a career in sciences? Is it about grants? Scholarships?
It’s a combination of all those things. We need to encourage girls from a very young age that they can do anything and pursue any career. Discrimination and moments where someone is put off studying science comes in many forms and at different points when someone is growing up. We as a society, as parents, as siblings, really need to nurture the mindset that girls can do anything.
Inventor Haiyan Zhang in 'Simon Reeve's Big Life Fix'.
Tell me about the Emma Watch. Can you explain in the most basic terms exactly how it works?
The Emma Watch sends vibration signals through her wrist and the signals disrupt and dampen the errant tremor signaling going to her hands.
When you begin creating a product like that was it more research based or a case of trial and error?
It was a combination of design and engineering. I did a great deal of research reading academic papers and medical journals on the topic. At the same time, I spoke with Emma and others with Parkinson’s to gain some insight into what specific challenges they faced and what ‘workaround’ solutions already existed, things like scissors that are easier to grip, a lid for your drinking glass with a straw so you don’t spill your wine.
What was the key to unlocking the science behind the watch?
I’d filled my head with a number of research papers, looking at ways to stimulate the brain in order to disrupt the tremor signals, and Emma and I visited Parkinson’s UK to look at the products out there that people were using to actually support them in their day-to-day lives.
One thing lying at the end of the table was a little digital metronome, the kind that musicians use to keep time. I asked what it was for and was told that some people with Parkinson’s suffer from freezing gait which is when their legs freeze mid-stride and they can’t seem to control them to move. In these moments the person will take out the metronome and turn it on and somehow the ticking sound will distract their brain into gaining control of their legs again. This was really a fascinating insight into what’s happening when someone’s brain is misfiring as a result of Parkinson’s and got me to start thinking about distraction or brain hacking as an approach.
The look on your face when it actually works - when Emma writes her name - is just amazing…
It’s really wonderful to see Emma use the device. I was totally blown away and continue to be awestruck every time I see her using it. I thought it would help but didn’t think it would work so well. It’s not often I get to see the impact of my work on a person and have that change the person’s life. It’s a really amazing opportunity… I feel very privileged.
What will happen with the product now? Are you planning to develop it further?
I’m talking with a neurology research team in London to do some trials with more patients, in order to validate the effects of the device and to scope out what range of people it might help. I don’t want to venture into unknown territory, but we have hopes it might treat other neurological conditions.
What’s next for you?
Shepherding further research on the Emma Watch. I also have a day job where we’re inventing some cool new technology that I’m trying to get out on to store shelves.
In general, just trying to make things in the world and have those things make a difference.
Simon Reeves Big Life Fix airs Mondays at 8.30pm on SBS.
