Smart phone app futurists take heart -- your blood pressure (is/may be/isn't) trending up (down). So this week's Pew Research Smartphone Ownership Survey reports that 24% of the 50-64 age group and 11% of the 65+ population have smartphones. That's good, they are incredibly useful -- navigation, Internet searches, e-mail/chatting, maps, reading a book, and on and on. But meanwhile, while they are still ramping up, it seems that the world is going a bit mobile healthy crazy, which will not help those most in need of these apps until adoption further grows, never mind trusting health data transmitted through a phone. The NY Times (April 25) expresses concern: Can a smart phone save your life? (Congrats to Independa for its senior monitoring mention.) Maybe, but there are problems. Watch a video of Eric Topol at the Aspen Ideas Festival: Yes/no, oops, let me restart this app!) And last, but definitely not least, IBM's new report about IBM scientists 'envisioning' a number of 'future' devices for better self-management of health and monitoring of seniors that will encompass diet support, caregiver notification, blood test and mobility.
More than two-thirds admit to such basic safety lapses as walking alone in remote places, forgetting to lock doors at night and having too little gas in their tanks As part of the company’s support and sponsorship for the National Safety Council’s June Safety Month initiative, GreatCall, Inc., a leader in wireless services focused on helping its customers stay connected, safe and healthy, today announced the results of its own 5Star Safety survey conducted by TNS Global. This press release is part one of a three part series from the company.
If it’s a Thursday, April 28, I must be -- Aging in America. Where are the restrooms? With so much travel these days, it’s easy to get disoriented – have I seen this exhibit floor before and which one of my seven PowerPoint slide decks is labeled Thursday at 2:30 pm? From talking to attendees and later reading AARP and Linda Barrett’s comprehensive and updated Healthy @ Home 2.0 -- it looks like as we are becoming older, we are more tech-aware (and apparently saturated with PCs), but still not galvanized into caregiver tech adoption urgency. It also seems to me that industry professionals hear about technology products and see more potential for introduction to their parents than for their elderly constituents. Oh, and by the way, they are waiting for integrators to bundle them into well-tested packages, short lists and solutions for family and professional caregivers.
When disruptive tech disrupts -- hindsight is 20-20. Even famous executives like Michael Dell can be surprised by market change -- his comment about the rise of the tablet: "I didn't completely see that coming" made me wonder a bit about his marketing staff. But it was his remark about Android that made me pause: "if you look at 18 months ago, Android phones were like, "What is that?" And now there are more Android phones than iPhones." Consider this description from another WSJ article, which notes that "the handset logs calling data, messaging activity, search requests and online activities. Many smartphones also come equipped with sensors to record movements, sense its proximity to other people with phones, detect light levels, and take pictures or video. It usually also has a compass, a gyroscope and an accelerometer to sense rotation and direction." And Android phones support voice-activated search, e-mail response, and navigation. It would not be unreasonable to expect all smart phones to do all of these things, oh, maybe by next Thursday. And the following version may be quite usable.
