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High-tech plant article |
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High-tech plant can mind elderly
American and French
scientists have created a “caring” house plant equipped with motion
sensors and cameras to gather information, complete with a computerized
brain that “learns” it owner’s routines and can tell if these stray from
the norm.
Equal
parts leafy adviser and calming potted friend, the plant – a prototype at
Accenture Technology Labs in Chicago that’s expected to be ready for sale
within about five years – uses artificial intelligence to know if its
owner is eating properly, experiencing fear; loneliness and pain, or
suffering from memory loss.
It’s
destined for an emerging eldercare market for robotic devices designed to
give assistance to those who aren’t ready to move into a retirement
village but need assistance to stay safely in their own home. By 2050, 30%
of the world’s population will be over the age of 65 and in need of
everything from specialized financial planning to solutions for managing
the burden of institutional care.
Hiding technology within familiar objects such as plants isn’t only
entertaining and commercially marketable. It’s designed to increase
seniors’ comfort with technology they might otherwise deem intrusive, said
Agata Opalach, an Accenture researcher based in Sophia Antipolis, France.
“Assistance (emanating from) everyday objects becomes more acceptable to
the person who needs help, it puts them at ease,” said Opalach, who
spearheads the global management and IT consulting firm’s Intelligent Home
Services Initiative.
“We
could have used an artificial plant, but then it wouldn’t have been as
interesting,” she said. “People get very attached and emotional about
caring for other living things.”
Miniaturized sensors in and around the pot gauge whether the plant itself
is getting enough sunlight or water. The rest of its wiring is focused on
helping the owner: tiny motion and pressure sensors, microphones and
discreetly positioned cameras feed data to a computer that analyses a
person’s gaze, posture, the speed and gait of their walk, and their
interaction with other objects in the room, in order to decide if family
members or a hospital need to be alerted to a potential problem.
Interaction with the plant doesn’t have to be health-related. Its facial
recognition software might deduce the human needs a little extra TLC, at
which point it could strike up a conversation.
Paul
Johnson, chairman of the International Federation of Robotics and a
vice-president of the Ottawa-based industry association Precarn Inc., said
manufacturers are only beginning to realize the lucrative potential of
devices that would let anxious children monitor frail parents’ daily
routines, or alleviate the loneliness and boredom associated with solitary
living.
Johnson cautioned there are many ways
to tackle eldercare: researchers from Dalhousie University in Halifax, for
example, are developing sophisticated experimental cameras to monitor an
older person’s home – without the cover of an accompanying plant.
By Susan Staples,
CanWest News Service
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