- How can technology help us take care of
our senior citizens?
Ask "Mother."
(guitar music)
I'm here looking at "Mother."
This is actually a system to look after
several small sensors
that are motion sensors
called cookies and it's
a very cute approach
but it has very serious
and awesome implications.
These motion sensors can
be attached to all sorts
of different devices and
they can help you monitor
when those things are being moved about.
So instead of going out and purchasing
a bunch of smart gadgets
that are all working on
one systems or another, you
could just buy the sensors,
attach the sensors to your
already existing gadgets
and give that functionality immediately
to your existing technology
and the technology
doesn't have to be fancy schmancy
it might be something like a toothbrush.
So imagine that you have a couple a kids
and you want to make sure
that they are practicing
good dental hygiene, attaching
a cookie to the toothbrush
will tell you that your kids
are actually brushing their
teeth or maybe they're not
and it's time to yell at them.
"Mother" will keep you
informed or all of that.
Beyond that, we can actually
see "Mother" being used
in ways to care for an aging population.
This is a big deal.
The aging population is growing worldwide
particularly here in the United States
so "Silver Mother" is an
approach to specifically monitor
the behavior and activity of
seniors so that caregivers
can rest easy knowing that
the people they care for
are okay and if something's not okay,
they can respond immediately
and take care of things.
It's a great story about
how technology can help us
in way that we couldn't
really rely upon before
and it's a way that is going
to be more and more important
as time goes on.
Well that's all for now
but make sure you come back
to now.howstuffworks.com
every single day, we're
going to be covering
all sorts of stories from the
world of science to tech to
pop culture to pretty much
everything else you can imagine.
So, remember now.howstuffworks.com
and I'm going to play with my cookies.
