I’d venture that in this day of superhero movies and techy whiz-bangs, just about everybody would be up for their own Iron Man suit. You know, something you could stroll over to the local supermart in without fear of anything—from runaway carts to overhead flying pigeons to passing drippy ice cream kiddos with the dropsies. And maybe someday we’ll have our chance: A company called Applied Minds is reportedly working on some actual, working Iron Man-like suits.
Cool, huh? But if, say, that company’s R&D team were to offer you an old geezer suit? Would you be up for that?
Let me elucidate.
One of the founders of Applied Minds—which defines itself as a “small company that invents, designs and prototypes breakthrough products and services for both industry and government,” and that Newsweek describes as a cross between “Q’s lab from James Bond and Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory”—is a guy by the name of Bran Ferren. He’s a 62-year-old mechanical wizard who dropped out of high school to attend MIT. He also used to be a bigwig at Walt Disney Imagineering and has done important work in movie and stage design. He’s the sort of guy who’s always thinking of ways to better mankind and enlighten the masses. And he decided to create something he calls an “aging suit” that the insurance company Genworth Financial hopes will jump-start a conversation with youthful Millennials about aging and senior care.
How’s it work? Well, you can check out the interactive picture of the suit here, but it’s described as a “Captain America-like” suit that has bolts and hinges at every joint to simulate a loss of mobility. The helmet gives the sense of impaired vision and hearing loss through custom software that blurs the wearer’s sight and feeds loud, ringing tinnitus-like sounds to their ears. It delivers the sense of everything from cognitive deterioration to arthritis. Just dress a youngster up and give them the low-down on what’s to come.
Not that it’s a necessarily popular topic.
“People would rather discuss death than aging,” said Janice Luvera, a Genworth executive. But she, Ferren and others are hoping this new-fangled fun-suit will actually get people discussing that sure-to-happen process of change. Especially since the number of people over the age of 85 will double by the year 2050.
“There’s certainly inevitability that comes with aging,” Ferren said in a Newsweek article. “Odds are you’re going to die. You can sort of hedge your bets one way or the other. But once you’re born, it’s only a matter of when.” And for those who refuse to believe Ferren and his crew, well, the designer has only one suggestion … “suit yourself.”
Badump-chuck!
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