As you approach middle age, a new reality is likely to set in: caring for an aging adult. But many in this demographic also have jobs, children and myriad other responsibilities. It's an extremely difficult role, but luckily, artificial intelligence (AI) is making it a little bit easier. A new home security system, CherryHome, created by Bay Area startup Cherry Labs, aims to alleviate some of this stress via a real-time video stream of an elderly person in their home. The system, created in 2017 and backed by GSR Ventures, uses vision sensors and microphones to detect and track the person's movements, providing caregivers with round-the-clock livestream monitoring.

In 2018, blockchain and artificial intelligence (AI) continue to be two of the technologies generating the most buzz--and yet, for the former, not all of that buzz was positive. Blockchain, especially cryptocurrencies like bitcoin, were battered heavily this past year. Bitcoin had topped $17,000 early in 2018 and is now worth less than a quarter of that. That is the bad news. The good news, however, is that the trend for AI is much more positive, with the technology gaining significant momentum consistently for the last few years.

Falls are the leading cause of injury among people 65 and older. Approximately 9,500 deaths in older Americans are associated with trips or stumbles each year, and on average, folks between the ages of 65 to 69 suffer a hip fracture one out of every 200 falls. More worryingly, as a result, 20 to 30 percent experience moderate to severe complications that can cause disability. Cherry Labs, a Cupertino startup founded in 2016 by entrepreneurs Max Goncharov, Stas Veretennikov, and Nick Davidov, aims to prevent those sorts of injuries with an artificially intelligent (AI) in-home system -- Cherry Home -- that's able to detect and track users with vision sensors and microphones. It today announced a $5.2 million funding round led by GSR Ventures, which it says will fuel a pilot program set to kick off in the coming weeks with TheraCare, a caregiving service, and TriCura, a tech platform that uses mobile apps to capture and share information among families, caregivers, and agencies. Cherry Home officially launched in October, and is currently testing with 15 families in the Bay Area.