The Core

My wife's uncle is sight impaired and he has a viewer which helps him read, it is essentially a auto-focus camera mounted on top of a large monitor with some computer controlled enhancements. The device went into firmware update mode and needed to be serviced before it worked again -- it was a real PITA and requires a Windows computer to get it done.

If he didn't have access to a relatively tech savvy person with normal vision the device would have essentially been bricked.  As I was there servicing the thing I started asking him questions about it; it turns out the device costs $5k.  It seems to me that something like that should be able to be built for much much less.  I could probably make the equivalent with about $300 worth of parts retail.

Keen-Eyed Robot Goes to Work for a Paralyzed Veteran
_{https://www.wired.com/story/a-keen-eyed-robot-goes-to-work-for-a-paralyzed-veteran/}

ELLI•Q
_{https://www.intuitionrobotics.com/elliq/}

They overshot the puppy goal, but getting close...
Kuri
_{https://www.heykuri.com/living-with-a-personal-robot}


Wired source article:
https://www.wired.com/story/companion-robots-are-here

I suspect it will double again, we've become very good at keeping sick people alive.

I hope I am lucky enough to follow a life pattern of Jack LaLanne, active, active, active, boom dead.

This thread is interesting because we're searching for a technology substitute for community and multi-generational family iteration.  A few years back there was a study that found that Hispanic Americans live longer than non-Hispanic White Americans despite having less education and income on average.

https://www.theatlantic.com/notes/2015/11/hispanic-paradox/414304/

    What I find shocking isn’t so much that non-Hispanic U.S. whites with less than a high school education are suffering in the highly unstable economic climate that has gotten progressively worse since the 1970s. What I find surprising, and what this article didn’t mention, is how U.S. Hispanics have been tracking down in average mortality rates since 1990, on par with the UK and even better than France and Germany. And this despite the fact that U.S. Hispanics tend to have even less education on average than U.S. whites, and that, proportionally, more U.S. Hispanics live in poverty and with less secure healthcare than U.S. whites.

    There are other major variables at work here—most likely robust family cohesion and less social isolation among middle-aged U.S. Hispanics when compared to middle-aged U.S. whites. As a Hispanic American, I can attest that, anecdotally, robust family and social cohesion is definitely the case.

Maybe along with the service robots technology will help the elderly & disabled feel more of a sense of community and belonging.  I think it is probably doing that a little these days with FB and video chat, but a robust, locally focused social network would help a lot.  I've seen a lot of cases of old widows/widowers locked up in their homes, having very little interaction with the outside world and waiting out the clock.  If I go to Chinatown in SF I'll see very old Cantonese people hanging out in the park together, talking and playing their games.  I think that daily interaction is keeping those folks alive, many of them look to be on the plus side of 95.

>people look after people

You haven't hired many long-term care attendants, eh, Rupert?  The percentage of thieving, lying, cheating assholes in this trade approaches 100%.  Unfortunately, my family has a lot of experience.

>active, boom dead.

I used to chide my mom about her 'elder years' --she kept talking like everyone just blinked out like light bulbs. Doesn't happen all that often now.  She was 4 years in the nursing home.

<added -Trav & I were just discussing this>
Switzerland "allows assisted suicide as long as there are no 'self-seeking motives' involved. Switzerland has tolerated the creation of organisations such as Dignitas and Exit, which provide assisted dying services for a fee."

http://www.dignitas.ch/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=4&Itemid=44&lang=en

This is a very good idea:
https://matadornetwork.com/abroad/cant-go-abroad-learn-language-skype-elderly-instead/

>>suicide pod

Speaking of Alzheimer's... (in the "save yourselves" thread).