CES 2012, Day One: Stay Connected, Live Longer

Posted on 01/11/2012 by Beth Carpenter // AARP Blog Author

The Consumer Electronics Show, held every year in Vegas, promises the newest, best, and the flashiest gadgets. New sparkly TVs may not quite make your lunch, but they will let you order takeout online; for $129, a robot can read your Facebook feed to you. (What? I’ve always wanted my friends’ political speeches and baby updates enunciated in robot voice.)

Robots and 3D TVs aside, what you might’ve seen at the Silvers Summit took all that gadgetry and reduced it down to something very simple: stay connected with your friends and family, live longer.

It’s no Facebook robot, but GrandCare‘s all-in-one system could remind you to take your pills, might alert your caregiver that your blood pressure is out of whack, or – simplest of all – makes it easy for you to send your granddaughter a Facebook message.

Made-for-seniors computing system MyGait simplifies all that clicking into an easy-to-use PC system – and for our money, the best part is the keyboard. (It’s the simple things.) Check it out – big keys, bright colors!

LiveMocha makes it possible for you to learn a new language with your friends – or meet new ones while absorbing those complicated Mandarin letters. Shiny gadget? Nope, but what if you met a few new friends while learning Russian together? We’ll take that over any shiny gadget.

As an OnStar rep aptly put it yesterday, “It’s not about adapting our lives for tech, it’s about adapting tech for our lives.”

That’s Day One. Tomorrow, we’ll look at smart fridges that know when you’re out of milk, smart washing machines that buzz your smartphone when they’re done, and smart fingernail clippers. (Maybe not the last one, but this is CES – you never know.) Stay tuned – you can bookmark all our CES blogs right here.