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Elderly given an internet key to family links

Bucharest - Two grandmothers mystified by computer tablets have inspired a French-Romanian start-up to develop an application and service to help the elderly stay in touch with their relatives through the internet.

The system - the work of a start-up called Hubert - began operating in the United States and in Europe on crowd-funding website Indiegogo earlier this month.

"Everything started after one of my grandmothers died in a home for dependent seniors in France," said Stephane Lucon, a Frenchman who co-founded Hubert.

"I was living in Romania with my wife and children 2 000km away from her.

"I went to visit her whenever I could but I would have liked her to be able to see her grandchildren every day via Skype or any video conference application."

Digital communications

But like many octogenarians or older, his grandmother did not know how to use a tablet or a PC.

A Pew Research Centre report published in April showed that US senior citizens were lagging behind the overall population in online usage.

Only 37% of those over 80 go online, compared to 86% of the overall US population who use the internet. The picture is similar in Europe.

Around the world, populations are ageing quickly. The number of over 80s will have almost quadrupled between 2000 and 2050 to 395 million, according to the UN World Health Organisation.

Many seniors understandably have difficulty with digital communications, having spent most of their lives in the pre-internet era.

After the death of one of his grandmothers, Lucon was determined to help the other one benefit from video link-ups.

"I realised that many elderly people are intimidated by the big number of applications on the tablet screen," he says.

From his house in the Romanian countryside, he worked for months on a new screen launcher with the help of a UK-based Romanian IT designer, Petre Nicolescu.

His 87-year-old grandmother was consulted on every step and asked for her opinion.

"I wanted to build a new interface so that she could see only one or two buttons on her screen with the application she uses: Skype, games," he said.

Real person

The result is a simplified screen on which all unused applications are hidden.

But as tablets can still puzzle new users, Lucon and his team created a support service that can take remote control of the device to fix problems or install new apps.

"Retailers usually consider that the family is here to help the seniors with the device but relatives often do not have the knowledge or the time to do it," Lucon said.

By pressing a help button on their screen, users will be connected vocally to a real person for help.

The support line will be accessible for a basic monthly subscription of $20.

US retail giant Amazon last year added a "Mayday" alarm button to its Kindle tablets for live technical support.


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