AgeTech

The hearing aid industry offers pricey hearing aids for people with ‘defined’ hearing loss.  The FDA wants you to understand that it regulates hearing aids – which it defines as helping the medical condition of hearing loss. The FDA then observes “sound amplifiers for consumers with no hearing loss who want to make environmental sounds louder for recreational use.“ Recreational ? Hearing aids that they do regulate are now made by a small number of companies and are sold with audiologist services for $1000 up to $4000 per device – most people need two – and have a lifespan of up to 7 years.   That price includes a hearing test, fitting, initial batteries and more.

Skip the tech – listen to the experts interviewed – first robots.  The good news – this week’s Health Care Technology supplement transcended the limits of doctors and hospitals – and dabbled in the dilemmas of elder care – included technology to assist those with dementia and mitigate loneliness.   The bad news -- another in a long line of 'robots and chatbots look after the elderly,' with promotions of those oft-promoted Care.coach and ElliQ, adding Catalia Health’s cute Mabu. These are worthy experiments – and not wanting to be left behind, there are always health organizations eager to see what the fuss is about. Says USC researcher, Maja Mataric: "Robots give patients the illusion of having a physical companion…it isn’t actually very hard to project empathy (Mabu)...Empathy is what you do, not what you feel."   Really?  How comforting.

April showers, daffodils and other flowers.  Depending on where you went in April you could experience spring multiple times – each time buds and birds emerging. With them, much news about technology, the good, the bad, the ugly, and the smug – not sure that so much time to look at and listen to Mark Zuckerberg’s confession felt like a positive.   It did make one wonder how long Facebook has known which of its “2 billion users” are the 87 million fake profiles – and are those counted in the data used by advertisers?  At any rate, here are the four blog posts from the month of April.

Smart speakers – they seem to be the new, new thing.  According to eMarketer’s new report , 40.7 million people will use a ‘smart speaker’ at least once in any given month. Because there is competition now, primarily from Google, the market share projection for Amazon (which ‘shipped tens of millions of devices at Christmas’) will drop from 66.6% to 60.8% share by then – and Google Home-related will rise to 30%. Other than Amazon and Google – “Other” will grow from 8.3% to 14%, which presumably includes Sonos, JBL, Harmon Kardon and other entrants. Does this matter? The split is less important than the growth in overall adoption, not because this is the coolest of new gadgetry, but because the user interface is finally improving and matching the way we think -- after many years of deteriorating screen-based UIs that, on a good day, are just plain annoying.