AgeTech

Alexa made me write about voice.  We signed up early for this Amazon Echo home control/music library accessed through a Pringle can looking box.  True, it needs to be connected to broadband and yes, it needs to be plugged into a wall outlet. But it has no keyboard, only voice input through a lighted-ring of seven microphones listening, continuously learning speech patterns. What to ask this smart-aleck Alexa?  Well, it turns out, it can play an amazing ‘shuffle’ of music you may have purchased through Amazon, but if you are an Amazon Prime member ($99/year), it can also play any of a million songs.  And it has the ability to set up logic scripts (If This, Then That) – links between wake-up alarms and turning on the lights. Oh, and did you know that to encourage voice-tech adoption, Amazon is also launching a $100 million Alexa Fund?

Technology improvements do not always…improve.  Rant on. You remember that experience in your life of turning a key and a long-ago new car just started? We expect that with technology but we virtually never get it. And we don’t complain. Much. Wireless networks in the home need a geek-or-two to get running. Smart phones require training, app downloads take time. Then slog through customization of menus, opting out of stupid defaults, and quite frightening disclosures. “Anonymous location data will occasionally be sent to Google, even when no apps are running. Agree?”  Oh sure. Because it doesn’t matter whether I agree or not.

The passion of innovation for seniors. Rant on. It’s the most I have seen in the past five years: the halo that surrounds finding new companies that could, perhaps, help older adults, even if they were designed for some other purpose. Many assess them, invite them to networking events, cultivate and encourage their expectations about future opportunity and even award them prizes. The criteria for selection/participation of these entrants are not always disclosed, but phrases about criteria are on the sponsoring entities' websites. New entrants will "have an already developed, scalable and financially sustainable product/service" or they will be "capable of scaling" or they will judge "how easy is it to get the product?" Or the product/service will have "sustainable competitive advantages, positioning or efficiencies." So you might be persuaded that the companies that enter, apply, win, or gain investment must actually exhibit these characteristics.

Everybody off the bus -- the last convention for AARP. Last week’s Life@50+ National Event in Miami was reportedly the last time AARP will produce one of these national entertainment-filled conventions with speakers and tracks for all interests and crowds of boomer-and-beyond women (mostly, based on observation) -- volunteering to pack lunches, climbing onto buses, and basking in the Florida sunshine. The health-focused startup Live Pitch event on Thursday heard 4 minutes from the 10 finalists, 2 minutes from five Florida-based startups, and short 1-minute pitches from alternates from each of those. Judges selected Splitsecnd, a portable device-plus-service for automatic vehicle crash tracking (similar to GM's profitable OnStar, but currently vehicle brand-independent). The audience voted for Audicus (for buying lower-priced hearing aids online) and Constant Therapy (a mobile solution to help patients improve brain function after stroke or brain injury.)

In tackling aging with tech -- interesting few weeks.  Sometimes odd things happen in sequences that beg a backward search for meaning. So let’s recap: within the past three weeks, Silicon Valley VCs invested in a presumably tech-enabled home care agency, Apple and IBM coughed up 5 million iPads for Japanese seniors (to “tackle aging”), and the US Senate held a hearing on the benefits of technology for those aging at home. Some might see these three disparate events, when viewed together, as a trend that shows how tech, big companies, and public policy are all coming together in an age-related trifecta of tech transformation. Whew!