GAFAMS, STARTUPS & INNOVATION IN HEALTHCARE by PHARMAGEEK

Future Technology

The Future of Voice Technology.

Via TechinBiz, Richard Platt

With the push of a button, a perfectly healthy 34-year-old museum-goer named Ugo Dumont was transformed into a confused 85-year-old man with cataracts, glaucoma and a ringing in his ears known as tinnitus.

 

Dumont had volunteered at Liberty Science Center on Tuesday to don a computer-controlled exoskeleton that can be remotely manipulated to debilitate joints, vision and hearing and shared with the crowd what aging feels like decades before his time.

Headphones muffled his hearing while goggles left him with only peripheral vision due to macular degeneration while the suit's joints were adjusted to simulate the stiffness of rheumatoid arthritis. The 40-pound (18 kg) suit also gave Dumont a taste of the weight gain people typically experience as they age.

 

"Wow," Dumont gasped as he struggled to walk on a treadmill facing a video titled "Walk on the Beach." His heart raced from 81 beats per minute to 100 as the staff cranked up the ailments, pushing buttons and levers on a control board linked to the computer backpack that he wore. "I don't know how you can focus on the water. You just want to be in bed!" said Dumont, a photo agent who lives in the nearby New York City borough of Brooklyn.

 

The Genworth Aging Experience is a traveling show created by Genworth Financial Inc., an insurance company, in partnership with Applied Minds, a design and engineering company, that allows museum visitors to feel first-hand the effects of aging.

Via Dr. Stefan Gruenwald