Accenture’s Virtual Family Dinners

Citing the ability to restore traditional family interactions, and benefits for the elderly, the consulting firm Accenture has developed The Virtual Family Dinner.

A picture’s worth a thousand words (or so they say), so here’s a video of Accenture’s labs and a demo of the project.

The concept is pretty simple: using microphones and video-conferencing technology, family members in remote locations can eat dinner together, replicating family interactions that have been lost as people move to different parts of the world. Using the system may provide social and health benefits, particularly amongst the elderly.

The health benefits from the system stem from being able to monitor the health of the elderly: being able to see how they look to what they’ve actually cooked for themselves. According to the Associated Press article, Dr. Julie Locher, assistant professor of medicine at the University of Alabama-Birmingham, “suspects virtual meals could forestall hospitalization or placement in nursing homes.” However, the potential invasiveness of the technology has some worried about “Big Brother,” privacy, and the ability to remain independent as an elderly person.

A prototype of the system may be available within two years at a cost to $500-1000 a unit. Most interestingly, Accenture hopes that insurance companies and government agencies will help to pay for the system.

Strangely, although the AP article is from December 24, I’ve found at least one article talking about this system from January 2006. I have no idea why it took a year for the AP to pick up on this.