"A new age for seniors is a golden opportunity for tech" by Michael B. Farrell | Globe Staff May 10, 2014
Tech firms are trying to better design products so they can be easily used by consumers of any age. Meanwhile, the nation’s most prominent organization for older Americans is campaigning to bring more tech to the aging masses, while pressuring the industry to pay more attention to this large — and growing — population of consumers.
I need to stop buying a Globe.
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Microsoft has provided its Xbox systems, the video console typically associated with teenagers, to a number of senior centers in New York City and Los Angeles, said Rob Sinclair, chief accessibility officer for tech giant Microsoft Corp.
Instead of playing “Call of Duty” or “Dance Central,” however, the older gamers are teeing up Xbox with virtual bowling games.
AARP held a three-day convention in Boston this week at which seniors such as Carrington toyed with the latest in mobile technology, while entrepreneurs wooed venture capitalists with new-fangled health care gadgets....
Hope they didn't get caught in the briar patch.
Titled Life@50+, the AARP convention featured headliners such as Whoopi Goldberg, Jay Leno, the Moody Blues, and two Bushes — former first lady Laura Bush and her daughter Barbara Pierce Bush. But held at the edge of Boston’s Innovation District, the conference had multiple events that featured technology as a core topic.
I'm glad I missed it.
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Aging2.0 is hosting its first global summit next week in San Francisco for entrepreneurs and investors working on new products and services for older people. It is expecting about 40 startups — and there’s a waiting list to get in.
I'm not saying the elderly should be ignored or kept ignorant; however, this make a buck of 'em any way you can agenda-pushing $tinks.
As for waiting lists.... Globe vacated VA coverage today. An unplugging of veterans, if you will.
A new excitement around innovation for seniors was evident at the AARP events in Boston this week.
Attendees included venture capitalists from some of the nation’s top firms scouting for promising leads, and entrepreneurs such as Nicole Pardo. Her Houston company, Remind Technologies, is developing a pill dispenser that connects to a smartphone and comes with an app that reminds users to take their medication.
“The senior market is huge — we don’t die young anymore,” quipped Pardo, while at an AARP event held at nearby at District Hall, a kind of clubhouse for the Seaport area that’s usually full of eager young tech types.
Still within the startup community, entrepreneurs focused solely on new technology for older Americans are still in the minority.
“We are the outsiders,” said Naama Stauber, cofounder of Compact Cath, which has designed a new kind of portable catheter. Compact Cath is based in Palo Alto, Calif., the heart of a hyper world of software developers trying to create the next Instagram or WhatsApp.
The removal of net neutrality by the FCC is going to kill that.
“It’s definitely less sexy,“ Stauber said of her company’s product. But....
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Apparently, “there is a group of seniors that is quite plugged in.”
