14 DAY TRIAL // Through HSPA broadband technology, Vodafone Espana Foundation, the Spanish Red Cross and Qualcomm hope to connect the elderly to their families and caregivers since they plan to unify voice and videoconferencing through a familiar device for the elderly, like the television in the '3G connecting generations' project.
The plan is to use a video conference system that works like a TV monitor, a webcam and a phone with mobile broadband Internet connectivity (HSPA ). This will help the elderly stay connected and also interact with their families, friends and caregivers, but at the same time, they will remain independent.
Juan Manuel Suarez del Toro Rivero, president of the Spanish Red Cross said that "the elderly are a rapidly growing community in our country". “Many of these people need assistance for daily activities and the new technology provides innovative ways to enable them to easily keep in touch with those who care for them and the people they trust," he added.
In my opinion, this could work both ways, though. You protect the elderly but, at the same time, they could become isolated from the outside world and human face to face contact if they use only that system to communicate and interact.
Then again, there are some good parts, since the family members of the participants will get free 3G phones to communicate with their beloved via video calls, which is really helpful since the participants in the program do not live with their family or near them. In the pilot phase of the project, there will be 100 participants. Another good thing is that the elderly will get to interact and connect with other people, thus expanding their social circle; they will also be able to download multimedia content like exercise videos and so on.