Twenty years ago, one focus of technology for seniors was the idea of home alerts. Living centers had big, bulky tags with alarm buttons that could be pressed, sending a message to the security guards at the center and prompting a response. Then, along came the mobile phone, email and webcams... We still have (and still need) those alarm buttons--but not as many. General purpose advances in other fields have filled much of the need.
I have written previously about some obvious winning technologies--robotics, nanotechnology and biochemistry. And I'm convinced that these will make life and aging easier for all of us. But I don't think I've been able to predict the huge winner, the game changer, the one invention that will change our definition of aging, of ability.
That's because I'm convinced that it will be some odd combination of two of those scientific disciplines, plus contributions from other technology sectors, that will do the job, and I'm not sure exactly how it will play out. But I'm 100% convinced that play out it will.
If you follow computing at all, you may have heard of Moore's Law, which says that the number of transistors occupying a given area will increase every couple of years. It's not a law of physics--it's an estimate of industrial productivity that has become a goal for producers of microprocessors and a roadmap for those who design software to see where the industry will be in the near future.
What has made Moore's Law come true is actually thousands of minor improvements in a number of very different engineering issues, from circuit design and silicon processing to battery life and software improvements. It's been literally thousands of improvements that were completely unpredictable as individual events but hugely predictable as far as their overall impacts.
The same will be true for technology and aging. The market for suppliers is huge--they can get rich off of geezers like us--and thousands of companies big and small are turning their considerable resources to finding ways of doing things faster, better and cheaper. Which means in the end that we will have better lives--that the period between 70 and 100 years of age will become a normal and productive period of life that won't be frightening, or isolating, or depressing. It will just be the next stage.
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