Domestic Robots Obviate the Chore Chart

I don't think enough people understand that Roomba, the vacuuming robot produced by iRobot Inc., is more than just a gadget, it is a navigating robot that consumers invite into their homes to partake in family life.

It's remarkable that Roomba can maneuver – with occasional errors, of course – any home without prior exposure. Just like a human inhabitant in your home, it can “see” the room around it so it does not make a fool of itself tumbling into the couch.

But Roomba is not just a houseguest, it's part of the family. Roomba and other domestic robots, for example, its mopping counterpart Scooba, adopt family roles by doing chores. A high-end, non-autonomous vacuum, which costs around the same as Roomba, doesn't do the work for you. Why, then, hasn't every home purchased a robotic helper?

Jodi Forlizzi in the Human-Computer Interaction department at Carnegie Mellon University observed a group of families with new Roomba vacuums. She reported that families were able to free their routines, and some families had truly adopted Roomba, even giving it names and treating it like a pet.

Roomba has the capability to be an ally by giving family members more time to manage other parts of their lives as well as more time to spend together. Granted, this depends on how much time it takes to vacuum your house, but as more domestic robots enter the home, that time saved doing chores robotically will increase.

Why not befriend something that could make your life more relaxed and fulfilling?

Baby Billboards

In the spring of 2010 when Apple revealed the iAd interface for in-app advertisements, the platform seemed innocuous. App users rejoiced at advertisements that would allow the application to continue running if they clicked on an ad. Ad developers, too, swooned at the Apple name tag.

Few thought of the impact this would have on children. On the family iPad, it was suddenly very normal for the kids to click and see about ten different products or services during one sitting of a game.

Granted, iAdvertisements must follow a strict set of guidelines, designated by Apple. Apple also takes a unique responsibility in policing ad placement, and apparently, Apple has decided that they should not go in games and other apps used by children. Or at least they should appear there less. In May 2011, one app developer received this email regarding ads in his Pokemon themed app:

We periodically review the apps in the iAd Network to ensure that all apps receiving ads are aligned with the needs of our advertisers. Currently, our advertisers prefer that their advertising not appear in applications that are targeted for users that are young children, since their products are not targeted at that audience.

Fair enough, and it's easy to see why this was a problem. Parents who let their kids play with their iDevices often forget they have their iTunes account password keyed in, or they leave it in out of convenience. Kids use iDevices as toys, mostly. It can be hard for them to grasp that real money does come into play.

As a result, humongous bills may ensue. It happened for the family whose daughter accrued $1400 of in-app purchases over a single holiday break. Luckily, the Kays got a refund, but small mistakes happen all the time. To app developers and advertiser's content, those small purchases add up.

Is it right to exploit children through advertising and in-app purchases? I hear the cry that it's "just good business." Apple is making an effort on the advertising front, anyway. For now, it's best that parents encourage their children to be more responsible when they're playing with expensive toys.

EDIT: As of April 2011, the user must enter their iTunes password if it has been over fifteen minutes since the last in-app purchase. But what remains to be said of marketing towards children who see applications as a game, not a business?

Alleviating Caregiver Burdens through Technology

Diagnosis of Alzheimer's or dementia is one of the hardest things that can happen to a family. Suddenly --everything changes. Roles switch, and someone takes on the task of caregiving, an extremely devoted and extremely difficult job. Evidence of this lies in the rate of reports of depression among family caregivers that are cited as anywhere between 30% and 83%. Seeing this as a problem that could be fixed, in 2008, researchers at the University of Miami conducted a study on a program that combines a Computer-Telephone Integrated System (CTIS) with traditional support and therapy to see if the CTIS promoted a decrease in reports of depression.

The CTIS comprised the traditional telephone services of calling and voicemail with mass-message capabilities, a notification feature for reminders from the caregiver's therapist, monthly teleconferences with other REACH (Resources for Enhancing Alzheimer's Caregiver Health) caregivers,  and a database of caregiver resources that included maps and phone numbers. The study found that the CTIS in conjunction with the REACH program was more effective at reducing caregiver depression than REACH alone.

Quite a compelling study, when one takes the relative simplicity of the technology into account. The system functions as a slightly modified a regular telephone; however, considering that the mean age of caregivers was 69 years can testify to its success. People of that age did not necessarily learn how to use a computer the way the average 5-year-old has to to grow up today. The caregivers were not only given an instruction manual for the CTIS but also were personally trained to use the system to ensure that any show of inefficacy was the fault of the program itself. A more complex program may exist, but that one has a different audience. The simplicity of the CTIS program levels the field for older users and invites more of the family to be connected online. This technology is an example of small, elegant changes of pre-existing technologies to help connect families when they need kinship most.