Below, in reverse chronological order, is information about the past monthly meetings of the Senior Academy Technology Explorers.
- March 4, 2024 – Previewing the Future with Futurist Ray Kurzweil
- February 5, 2024 – Clean Power with Batteries
- January 8, 2024 – ElliQ – The A.I. Companion
- November 6, 2023 – SpaceX’s StarLink Satellite-Based Internet Service
- October 2, 2023 – Artificial Intelligence is Remaking Our World
- May 1, 2023 – Cybersecurity 2023
- April 3, 2023 – ChatGPT Made Easy
- March 6, 2023 – The Bright & Dark Sides of ChatGPT
- February 6, 2023 – The Promise of Fusion Energy
- January 9, 2023 – Gmail – Friend or Foe?
- December 5, 2022 – Innovative Accessibility
- November 7, 2022 – Biomimicry
- October 3, 2022 – Can Heat Pumps save the planet?
- September 12, 2022 -Alt-Meat Technology (opens in a new tab)
- May 2, 2022 – Wonderful Wheelchairs! Prevent and Heal Pressure Injuries
- April 4, 2022 – The Future of Transportation
- March 7, 2022 – The James Webb Space Telescope
- February 7, 2022 – Cryptocurrency
- January 10, 2022 – Digital Health Pandemic Lessons
- November 8, 2021 – 3D Printing
- October 4, 2021 – Digital Therapeutics
- September 13, 2021 – Contactless Shopping
- July 12, 2021 – New Health Technologies
- June 7, 2021 – CyberSecurity
- May 3, 2021 – 5G
- April 5, 2021 – The Antikythera Mechanism
- March 1, 2021 – AARP and OATS/Senior Planet Online Classes
December 5, 2022
The title of this month’s video was “Innovative Accessibility: Improving User Experiences for All”.
It was the latest in a series of videos from CES 2022. CES (formerly the Consumer Electronics Show), is held in Las Vegas annually in January. For a bit more about CES, see the May 3, 2021 meeting information.
As we age, our hearing and vision tends to abate, and that can be difficult to accept. Many of us choose denial, despite the fact that doing so is disabling, and do not seek medical help. The CDC reports 61 million U.S. adults are disabled. How many are not included in that number?
But new help has arrived, courtesy technological innovation. Learn how national, state and local regulations spur innovation; how new technologies are opening doors for those disabled by hearing and vision loss; how disabled advocacy groups work with technology and service vendors to add accessibility.
The discussion is moderated by Steve Ewell, the Executive Director at Consumer Technology Association Foundation. Its mission is:
Our mission is to link seniors and people with disabilities with technologies that enhance their lives.
The expert panel consists of:
- Dr Lee Schwamm Principal, MLC Strategies, LLC
- Kamilah Martin-Proctor, Diversity & Accessibility Inclusion Specialist – Current Board and commission member with the: Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA), National Disability Institute, World Institute On Disability, Washington, DC Commission On Persons With Disabilities, US National Council On Disability. Experience with the U.S. Department of Labor Disability Employment Program Advisory Committee
- Clark Rachfal, Director of Advocacy and Governmental Affairs at American Council of the Blind
Click or tap the “play” icon, then you will want to click tap the full-screen icon in the lower right corner.
November 3, 2022
By John Trudeau
This month we’ll be taking an interesting and casual side-trip, looking at how engineers have found inspiration for new technologies from the natural world around us. We’ll learn about “Biomimicry” – learning how nature works and bringing that knowledge into our technological designs.
In a few short videos we’ll see:
- How spider web strands are among the strongest tensile materials known
- How some robot-designs are inspired by animals and insects
- How bird shapes are incorporated into the Japanese bullet train
- And much more.
The slides are available below:
If you want to watch the videos:
1: Copying Nature: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iMtXqTmfta0
2: 8 Technologies: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YT5TZY-emYM
3: Biobots: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XDeR1JYXSy0
4: Spider Textiles: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cTF3Hy5w8Io
5: Spider Silk: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U58lP25HKhM
6: Robotic Hand: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GJ_Zki8e8Kw
7: Biomimicry: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r1CpzEGhs3c
October 3, 2022
Can Heat Pumps save the planet?
By Tony Berg
Lord Kelvin developed the idea in 1852 and is commonly held responsible for the scientific concept.
Unbeknownst to most of us, we all typically have at least two heat pumps in our homes. A heat pump is pumping heat:
- Out of the refrigerator to keep it cool.
- Out your house in the summer to keep it cool.
A heat pump does not burn fossil fuels to generate heat. It simply pumps heat from one location to another.
While the technology has been around a long time, it is only recently that the efficiency and elimination of fossil fuel burning has become a major consideration in protecting our planet from the damage we have been inflicting and the impact it is now having on our living environment.
Most homes in The Villages with central air could in principle replace the AC unit with a heat pump and cut off the gas supply to the furnace, saving money and the planet at the same time.
This is a timely recent and very informative article from CNBC (click/tap in the box to open it):
Just below is the recording of the meeting:
The slides are available below as:
A PowerPoint slideshow. Click/tap in the box to open it in a new tab:
OR
A Google Slides slideshow. Click/tap in the box to open it in a new tab:
May 2, 2022
This month’s Technology Explorers meeting was the first with a vendor to present to us since the robot Kiki. We were surprised to learn that pressure injuries kill nearly twice as many people in the U.S. as car accidents. There are 2.5 million pressure injuries treated each year costing well over $20 billion. Kalogon was founded to address this problem.
Kalogon’s CEO and founder, Tim Balz, used his high school robot club experience to launch the Freedom Chairs non-profit. Click below to visit the website.
After entering college he became an intern at Intel, proposed a “connected wheelchair” project that was accepted with him as project leader. Just below is a short video about it, followed by the article (click it to read) that originally included the video.
Here’s another short video about this featuring Stephen Hawking.
Below is the recorded presentation explaining pressure injuries and Kalogon’s technology solution.
April 4, 2022
The Future of Transportation
This month, our series of videos from CES transitions from the 2021 all virtual panel discussions to the 2022 hybrid in-person and online discussions. For more about CES, see the May 3, 2021 meeting information.
Introduction
The picture above was included in a Computer History Museum (CHM) special exhibit installed from 2014 to 2019. The following two paragraphs are from the online version of the exhibit:
When Robert Whitehead invented the self-propelled torpedo in the 1860s, the early guidance system for maintaining depth was so new and essential he called it “The Secret.” Airplanes got autopilots just a decade after the Wright brothers. These days, your breakfast cereal was probably gathered by a driverless harvester. Sailboats have auto-tillers. Semi-autonomous military drones kill from the air, and robot vacuum cleaners confuse our pets.
Yet one deceptively modest dream has rarely ventured beyond the pages of science fiction since our grandparent’s youth: the self-driving family car. Unlike Mars rovers or sailboats, cars need to navigate the complex world of city streets, passing inches away from fragile, litigious human beings. This article explores both the history of autonomous vehicles in general, and that elusive goal of a car that drives itself. Several groups say they are now close to making it a reality. If they succeed, how will they change our world? Could autonomous cars replace public transportation? Would they make our cities more walkable, or supersize them with unimaginable sprawl?
After the installation was removed in 2019, the curator, a person with very impressive credentials, posted an article titled Where To Next?; here are the first three paragraphs:
It’s a Tuesday morning in 2037. You hurriedly brush your teeth and dress to meet the self-driving car arriving downstairs. As it pulls away from the curb, what world awaits? Will you pass children frolicking in lush playgrounds built over now unneeded parking lots? Or lines of homeless ex-truckers waiting for a rare remaining bus, as autonomous luxury RVs carry snoozing techies to work along a new shoreline born of rising seas?
It might not just be cars driving themselves, either. The same technology that lets a Volvo safely navigate a world of stray dogs and road construction can eventually get cheap and small enough to help a walking hors d’oeuvres table thread its way through a crowd. Or a public health microbot navigate the leg hairs of a target in search of louse eggs, after infiltrating his socks.
Self-driving cars may indeed prove the killer app that turns smart navigation into an industry. But the implications of such navigation are far broader, from an internet of moving things to a rethink of nearly every way we transport both objects and ourselves. More than we’re consciously aware, transport today is shaped by the attentions spans, comfort, egos, and budgets of human drivers. Once we unravel those links, transport of all kinds will find new centers of gravity, business models, and policy goals. But there may be twists and turns along the way.
Also, coincidental with the exhibit’s closure, the PBS series Nova aired an episode titled Look Who’s Driving. The link on the title is to the episode’s web page. You can watch it if you have a PBS subscription.
CHM presented a showing of the Nova video and a discussion by a “panel of pioneering company leaders and academic experts.” The link is to a YouTube video of the panel discussion only.
CES 2022 The Future of Transporation
The Future of Transportation CES session showcases two critical domains that are needed to realize the autonomous future – government involvement and ubiquitous communications.
The session is moderated by Jean Foster, SVP of Marketing and Communication for the organization that presents CES. It includes a virtual talk by:
U.S. Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg
followed by Jean Foster interviewing:
Click or tap the “play” icon; then, you will want to click or tap the full-screen icon in the lower right corner.
March 7, 2022 – The James Webb Space Telescope
By John Trudeau
Introduction
In this meeting, we looked at the mechanical, materials, and optical engineering technologies behind the recently launched James Webb Space Telescope (JWST).
The JWST is going to be looking at the Universe in the infrared spectrum with two main objectives, to begin with: 1) explore the earliest formation of stars and galaxies after the beginning of the Universe, and 2) explore the chemical components of nearby exoplanets to determine which might be able to support life and perhaps may even show evidence of life already.
The JWST will be compared to the Hubble and Spitzer space telescopes to show why hopes are very high for new discoveries with this more advanced and very powerful system.
By the time of the meeting, the JWST had deployed its mechanical systems and positioned itself in its final orbit at the Earth-Sun Lagrange #2 position, in line with the Sun, Earth, and moon, about a million miles beyond the Earth’s orbit.
Following that is a four- to six-month period of optical alignments and instrument testing and calibration. We looked at some of the details of the JWST optical systems and the complexities of the alignment process.
It is expected that by May 2022 we will start to see some pretty good images coming from the telescope, and by June/July some initial scientific data should be coming in. The expected active lifetime of the JWST is estimated from 10 to possibly over 20 years.
The Slide Show Presentation
Below are John’s slides with speaker notes to explain each slide. Pressing the 3 vertical dots in the bottom bar will display this:
It is suggested to first view the slides, in full screen if desired, before opening the speaker notes (the – / + control will adjust the font size of the notes) as they will open in a new window or tab.
You can use the < and > by the slide number at the bottom, or the down and up arrows, to view the slides. Slides 6, 16, and 17 are the three videos shown in the meeting.
Do not click/tap “Google Slides” at the bottom as it will open a new window or tab assuming you wish to access the underlying slide presentation file in your Google account.
If you have any difficulty with the slide show, use our Contact Us form.
Below, following the slide show, there is a collection of additional resources, videos, and websites, with more information.
Other Webb-Related Recommended Videos
Webb Space Telescope mission- Live updates:
https://www.space.com/news/live/james-webb-space-telescope-updates
James Webb Space Telescope – Latest News | NASA:
https://www.nasa.gov/content/james-webb-space-telescope-latest-news
Updates and Less Known Facts About Webb Telescope Launch:
Extra technical references for the Webb Telescope
About reflecting (mirror-based) telescopes:
Halfway through this article is a section on “Reflecting Telescope Designs”, which shows “Cassegrain”, the design for the Webb telescope, and others similar.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reflecting_telescope
Optical “aberrations” – imaging problems:
A bit technical, but discusses “Spherical Aberration” and others.
Earth-based segmented-mirror telescope — Keck Observatory:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W._M._Keck_Observatory
Predecessor of the Webb telescope, the “Spitzer Space Telescope”, mentioned in the videos:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spitzer_Space_Telescope
Many of the goals for Webb are very similar to those for Spitzer, but Webb is much larger and more capable. Both operate in the infrared spectrum. Spitzer was cooled by liquid Helium, which severely limited its functional lifetime. Hence the solar shield approach for Webb.
Greatest discoveries of the Spitzer telescope:
https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/15-of-spitzers-greatest-discoveries-from-15-years-in-space
What we might expect from Webb, with much more detail, plus many new unexpected discoveries!
February 7, 2022
Crypto is More than Currency
Introduction
Cryptocurrency is new to most, with lots of jargon. The subject experts in the meeting’s main video have vast experience in cryptocurrency as well as in worldwide and domestic financial systems, adding additional unfamiliar terminology. If you find this all confusing, you are not alone. The information presented in this meeting is just scratching the surface.
There is an introductory slide presentation using infographics and financial institutions’ screenshots, attempting to provide some context for unfamiliar terms. It went by quickly in the meeting. You can watch again and pause to read parts you missed.
The main video was presented next, then a few more videos.
- A short CNN video containing counterpoints on the viability of cryptocurrency
- A CBS/60 Minutes+ discussion of the cryptocurrency-related subjects of NFTs and Metaverse
- A trailer for a film frequently mentioned in Metaverse discussions
- A Web 3.0 (also cryptocurrency-related) explanation video
Introductory Slide Presentation
The eleven-minute slide presentation below contains the introductory comments made prior to the main video.
The slides show:
- There were many skeptics at the outset for many of today’s top successful innovations
- Brief mention of Bitcoin, blockchain, Ethereum, and Smart Contracts
- Coins and Tokens
- Bitcoins’ Value
- Comparing sending money versus Bitcoin
- Coins and Initial Coin Offerings (ICOs)
- More Bitcoin terminology
- Blockchain-based applications
- Web 1.0, 2.0, 3.0
- The Web 3.0 Economy
- Big company adoption of Bitcoin
- Screenshots: PayPal, Mastercard, Visa, Bank of America, J.P. Morgan/Chase, Charles Schwab, Fidelity, Wells Fargo
- A short video by TD Ameritrade
Main Video
The main video, titled “The Cryptocurrency Landscape,” is another in our series of videos from CES 2021. For a bit more about CES, see the May 3, 2021 meeting information.
The discussion is led by Michael Casey, the Chief Content Officer of the leading cryptocurrency news site. The discussion panel consisted of:
- Dr Lee Schwamm, VP for Digital Health Virtual Care at Mass General Brigham
- Deenen Vojta, Executive Vice President for Global Research & Development at UnitedHealth Group and Chief Physician Executive for OptumLabs – This OptumLabs short article about the video is worth a read.
- Inder Singh, the founder, and CEO of Kinsa.
- Matt Roszak, Chairman & Co-Founder of Bloq
Click or tap the “play” icon; then, you will want to click or tap the full-screen icon in the lower right corner.
More Videos
CNN video: Is Crypto the future of money or the biggest scam
A 60 Minutes+ video: NFTs and the Metaverse The internet enters a new phase
What is Web 3.0?
The 2018 Steven Spielberg film is often cited as a (dystopic) metaverse depiction:
January 10, 2022
The title of this month’s video was “Digital Health in 2020: Rules of Contagion”.
That was the latest in a series of videos from CES 2021. CES (formerly the Consumer Electronics Show), held in Las Vegas annually in January, with CES 2022 concluding just before this meeting. For a bit more about CES, see the May 3, 2021 meeting information.
This may have been the most important, and informative, session we have viewed so far. Produced at the end of 2020, it discusses lessons learned (to that point) addressing the pandemic which can help the U.S. healthcare system be better prepared for the next pandemic.
These Digital Healthcare experts also discuss some general problems with the current overall healthcare system, along with alternative approaches to serving medical and insurance clients with better outcomes and payment structures. Additionally, how precision medicine, predictive analytics, and digital medical devices and therapeutics may help with better outcomes and drive down costs.
The four-minute slide presentation below contains the introductory comments for the meeting’s video.
The discussion is led by David Kirkpatrick, the founder of Techonomy Media. He first interviews the exceedingly well qualified Vivian Lee, MD, the president of platforms for Verily Life Sciences (part of Alphabet, Google’s parent company). Then he moderates a panel discussion consisting of:
- Dr Lee Schwamm VP for Digital Health Virtual Care at Mass General Brigham
- Deenen Vojta, Executive Vice President for Global Research & Development at UnitedHealth Group and Chief Physician Executive for OptumLabs – This OptumLabs short article about the video.is worth a read.
- Inder Singh, the founder and CEO of Kinsa.
Click or tap the “play” icon, then you will want to click tap the full-screen icon in the lower right corner.