Hammacher also sells voice-clarifying listening devices (without FDA approval, these cheap alternatives can’t be called hearing aids).
Still a passion for it
Enabling tech is likewise a major focus with Tech50plus.com, a site steered by journalist and public-policy wonk Gary Kaye. “My feeling is that going into (our) 50s, 60s, and 70s, most of us have not lost our passion for tech,” he said. “What we have lost is some of our eyesight, some of our hearing. But mostly what we’ve lost is the patience to deal with stuff that doesn’t work right.”
That’s the starting point for Tech50plus reviews and features. “Every time we pick something up — a tablet, a smartphone, an e-bike, or a piece of travel gear — we’re asking, ‘Will this work for our audience? Is it 50-plus friendly, what’s the frustration factor, and is it worth the money? Is the owner’s manual poorly written, or do you need a magnifying glass to read it? When you can’t get it going, is the tech support responsive? Or will that product wind up in a drawer, never used?’ ”
Connected health care products, a fast-growing category that covers everything from fitness trackers to remote monitoring of chronic conditions, earns special study at Tech50plus.com. With not enough local doctors to serve the growing senior population, Kaye sees great promise in telehealth consultations with patients (using tablets, phones or computers), “which are now approved for payment by Medicare for services like follow-up consultations, psychotherapy, and behavioral counseling for diabetes and obesity.” And with big guns like Intel and Qualcomm on board, lots more med-tech is brewing — such as voice-activated data entry that “will free doctors to actually look at you instead of their computer screens” and “disaggregated” Big Data analysis of medical reports, “which will speed disease cures with machine learning and artificial intelligence.”