The inexorable advance of the bionic eye continued this weekend, as doctors reported they were able to implant tiny telescopes (telescopes!) into the eyes of patients suffering from macular degeneration. More »
Is there anything Official DTV Spokesperson Carol Brady can’t do?
Few geeks haven’t dreamt of one day taking on cyborg enhancements—me included. And today I did, thanks to two of Honda’s wearable Asimo-inspired Walk Assist devices. This is how it felt.
Microsoft has teamed with various hardware vendors to sell PCs for seniors. Because apparently the cute girls under five market is pretty small.
Sometimes, old people fall and they can’t get up. It’s a fact! Designer Haishan Deng has proposed a simple, timed bathroom doorknob for folks who are prone to such accidents, living alone, or clumsy.
I no longer fear getting old now that researchers at the University of Tokyo have developed Mamoru-Kun—a robot that helps elderly people find lost objects and remember to take their medication.
On one level, this video is fun because it explains how computers work in the most dumbed-down language imaginable. On another level, it’s from the 90s, the golden early age of the internet. And it’s aimed at the elderly, creating the trifecta.
Thanks to the Second Amendment, even the elderly have the right to keep and bear arms. The problem is that many of the guns out there are a bit unwieldy for an older person to handle. However, the inventors of the Palm Pistol are planning to change all that with a weapon that is ideal for both the elderly and the physically disabled. The firearm appears to be a redesign of the classic “Chicago Palm Pistol” first patented in the US in 1883—the difference being that the modern Palm Pistol is a single shot device with a thumb trigger. According to the product site, “point and shoot couldn’t be easier”—so now we have to worry about protecting our toodles from pistol packin’ Grandmas like the one featured after the break.
The large elderly population in Japan has manufacturers clamouring to develop devices to assist them. Not surprisingly, they are coming up with some pretty unique ideas. Take this human airbag for instance. The airbag system is strapped onto the body and inflates in 0.1 seconds when it detects rapid movement toward the ground. Strangely, one pocket will be behind the head and another behind the hips—but there is no protection for a forward fall. So, Grandpa is on his own if he should trip and fall face-first in the street. Walk it off, Grandpa…walk it off. [BBC]
It turns out the wet t-shirt-wearing girls riding those mechanical bulls at the local bar were actually exercising. No lie, as you can see with this Five Axis Core Muscle Trainer, ripped from the everlasting kitsch-ridden pages of Hammacher Schlemmer. The saddle tilts left and right, up and down, and throws in a few twists for good measure. All the while the motions target your “core muscles,” which are worked as your body attempts to regain equilibrium. The whole idea of a rocking, jocking mechanical exercise bull for the home actually sounds kind of exciting, until you realise this piece of equipment was designed with the senior bull rider in mind. And yes, those are stirrups.
