Smarts: Quality of Life Technology

Carnegie Mellon's Quality of Life Technology (QoLT) Center's mission to improve human independence is a novel and noble one. Pulling from the best research we have on human psychology and physiology in conjunction with mechanical and information technology, the Center is able to focus more on human involvement in a human-machine symbiosis rather than one over the other. In the Center's first newsletter, they envision "a future of invisible robotic systems...that will aid and compensate for deficits in perception, cognition and mobility, three key components of independent living." Such focus on humanity is widely overlooked in many novice or inevitably unsuccessful technological developments while it is at the core of most breakthrough innovations. Unfortunately, much of what is produced in our consumerist society satisfies our wants and not our needs like the QoLT Center. I can't wait to see what comes out of their doors next. The First International Symposium on Quality of Life Technology has recently opened participant applications and is scheduled for June 30, 2009.

Some minor feedback: Expand your vocabulary beyond "capabilities" if you want to keep the audience's attention. You used it in this video almost as much as I heard "Twitter" at last night's Twestival in Rochester, NY.

Other progress by WebMD, Google, and Microsoft shows promise for even greater individual understanding and in turn self-directed involvement in personal health. Recently, the combined medical record initiatives of these companies in association with top universities such as Harvard and Michigan (the Harvard of the Midwest - Go Blue!) led to the development of Medpedia, the first publicly accessible collaborative encyclopedia and resource for information about health, medicine and the body. My parents are both family physicians, undisputedly a dying breed of health care professionals. I have a hunch such health care innovations, including self-administration will eliminate the need for non-specialized physicians such as my parents. Good thing they're retiring soon.