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Low technology and eHealth literacy among older adults in retirement communities hinder engagement with digital tools. To address this, we designed an LLM-powered chatbot prototype using a human-centered approach for a local retirement community. Through interviews and persona development, we prioritized accessibility and dual functionality: simplifying internal information retrieval and improving technology and eHealth literacy. A pilot trial with residents demonstrated high satisfaction and ease of use, but also identified areas for further improvement. Based on the feedback, we refined the chatbot using GPT-3.5 Turbo and Streamlit. The chatbot employs tailored prompt engineering to deliver concise responses. Accessible features like adjustable font size, interface theme and personalized follow-up responses were implemented. Future steps include enabling voice-to-text function and longitudinal intervention studies. Together, our results highlight the potential of LLM-driven chatbots to empower older adults through accessible, personalized interactions, bridging literacy gaps in retirement communities.

Microsoft is running a mental healthcare service program for older people using artificial intelligence, voice assistants, and wearable tech in South Korea. The pilot program aims to use the combination of technologies to improve the mental health of people as they age, as a growing body of evidence suggests they can. The program is based on Microsoft's Azure Kinect, essentially a sensor kit connected to artificial intelligence. Kinect combines a high-end camera and microphone with other sensors to detect human movement. That information will be combined with data from smartwatches and other wearable tech and analyzed by the AI.

CVS and the United Parcel Service (UPS) will use drones to deliver prescription medication to residents in a Florida retirement community that is under lockdown due to the coronavirus. Starting on May 4th, those living in The Villages will receive their prescriptions from a Matternet's M2 drone. The drones will drop off orders at a designated spot outside of the community and an employee will transport the items to each person's home. The Villages, which is home to some 135,000 people, is the US's largest retirement community and has reported 171 cases and 12 deaths during the pandemic. Scott Price, UPS chief strategy and transformation officer, said: 'Our new drone delivery service will help CVS provide safe and efficient deliveries of medicines to this large retirement community, enabling residents to receive medications without leaving their homes.'

Among the big auto Goliaths and their swollen check-writing wrists, there's a little startup armed with a slingshot and bragging rights. That startup is Voyage, and it has some lessons to teach the mobility sector. The team who spun out of Udacity's self-driving car nano degree program has raised just over $20M to date, per CEO Oliver Cameron. For reference, that's two orders of magnitude smaller than the last investment round announced by GM's Cruise. And unlike Cruise, Voyage has customers today.

The operational environment is the single biggest factor in determining the development timeline of a self-driving car. The environment dictates every key technical challenge, most importantly in terms of speed and complexity. In 2015, Waymo was the first to demonstrate a fully driverless trip, offering Steve Mahan a ride in Austin, TX. They did so in a purpose-built vehicle, nicknamed Firefly. Classified as a Neighborhood Electric Vehicle, the Firefly was speed-limited to 25MPH and restricted to calmer roadway.

Silicon Valley has long sought to disrupt virtually every aspect of modern life. Now comes technology's final frontier: old age. Tech that's specifically designed for seniors is a growing market, fueled by inexorable demographic trends – about 10,000 baby boomers turn 65 every day. Senior tech is increasingly showing up in assisted living facilities and nursing homes. A company called It's Never Too Late proffers a massive 70in high-definition touchscreen computer that provides older people with little prior tech experience easy access to everything from travel videos and music playlists to a library of college lectures.

When Alexis Ohanian met Jewel Burks a few years back while filming a show called Small Empires, he was pretty clear about how formidable he thought the young entrepreneur was. "I would not bet against Jewel," he said. In 2016, Amazon acquired her company, which uses machine vision to identify the weird widget you're holding in your hand so you can order another one. Now she is Amazon's team lead for visual search, and she spends a lot of her time investing and advocating for diversity in the tech industry. Ohanian, the founder of Reddit and an active investor through his seed-stage venture firm Initialized Capital, nominated her to WIRED's list of 25 people who will shape the next 25 years, and the two sat down at our anniversary festival in October to talk about where technologists should be investing, where startups should locate themselves, and yes, Olympia. Arielle Pardes: Jewel, your story challenges the traditional entrepreneurship narrative.

Voyage recently announced its 2nd gen self-driving taxi, and a fleet partnership with Enterprise. Among the big auto Goliaths and their swollen check-writing wrists, there's a little startup armed with a slingshot and bragging rights. That startup is Voyage, and it has some lessons to teach the mobility sector. The team who spun out of Udacity's self-driving car nanodegree program has raised just over $20M to date, per CEO Oliver Cameron. For reference, that's two orders of magnitude smaller than the last investment round announced by GM's Cruise.

As supporters and critics debate self-driving vehicles, 125,000 senior citizens who live in a central Florida retirement community will take them for a ride in the world's largest self-driving experiment. Voyage, an autonomous vehicle (AV) startup specializing in a robo-taxi service, will pick them up at their homes and drive them free of charge to and from grocery stores, theaters, pools, golf and tennis with only a "technician" on board to monitor the system -- and take the wheel if necessary. Later on, the technician will be dropped and a transportation fee added. If this rollout proves successful, it could pave the way for AVs to assist seniors nationwide with needed services. It could also give a lift to this fledgling industry at a time when automakers are coming under fire for moving too fast on self-driving vehicles -- and the federal government for moving too slowly. But in this community, older Americans seem to like it.