“60 MINUTES” LISTINGS FOR SUNDAY APRIL 22
DATA MINER – This Lesley Stahl report gets to the heart of the Facebook data scandal and includes the first extended television interview with the man accused of stealing the data of tens of millions of Americans. Shachar Bar-On is the producer.
THE FUTURE FACTORY – One of the ways the Media Lab has been developing futuristic technology for more than 30 years is by recruiting people with the craziest ideas. Scott Pelley visits the lab and finds a crystal ball full of technologies that may someday become a part of our everyday lives. Katie Kerbstat is the producer.
FOR BETTER OR FOR WORSE -- CBS News chief medical correspondent Dr. Jon LaPook follows an Alzheimer’s patient and her caregiver husband for 10 years in an unprecedented report that shows future sufferers and their caregivers what they may face. Robert G. Anderson, Aaron Weisz and Deborah Rubin are the producers.
ON “60 MINUTES,” ONE OF THE WAYS MIT’S MEDIA LAB BECAME SUCH A “FUTURE FACTORY” IS ITS OPEN ATTITUDE ON IDEAS: “THE CRAZIER THE BETTER”
Thirty years ago, you might be called crazy if you wanted to get driving directions from a computer. But in 1989, the Media Lab at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology did just that, developing turn-by-turn navigation that it called “Backseat Driver.” One of the ways the Media Lab has been developing futuristic technology for more than 30 years is by recruiting people with the craziest ideas, a MIT professor tells Scott Pelley. Pelley visits the lab on Sunday’s 60 MINUTES and finds a crystal ball full of technologies that may someday become a part of our everyday lives. The report will be broadcast Sunday, April 22 (7:00-8:00 PM, ET/PT) on the CBS Television Network.
Professor Pattie Maes ran the Media Lab’s graduate program’s student admissions for more than a decade. She tells Pelley they don’t admit students based on whether their ideas seem feasible. “Actually, the crazier the better,” says Maes. “We really select for people who have a passion. We don’t have to tell them to work hard. We have to tell them to work less hard and to get sleep, occasionally.”
Today, the lab is developing pacemaker batteries recharged by the beating of the heart; self-driving taxi tricycles that you summon with your phone; phones that do retinal eye exams; and teaching robots.
MIT’s Nicholas Negroponte co-founded the Media Lab in 1985. In a proposal, he wrote “computers are media” that will lead to “personalized and interactive systems.” He predicted the rise of flat panel displays, high-definition television, and news “whenever you want it.” Negroponte became the Media Lab’s director for 20 years. “When we were demonstrating these things in, let’s say, ‘85, ‘86, ’87 – it was really considered new… indistinguishable from magic,” he says.
Also currently under development at the Media Lab are advanced prosthetics whose users are not only able to move their high-tech limbs, but feel them, too. Hugh Herr is a professor who leads a prosthetics lab at the Media Lab. He agrees that crazy ideas, as well as collaboration can be the key to creativity. “You get this craziness. When you put, like, a toy designer next to a person that’s thinking about what instruments will look like in the future next to someone like me, that’s interfacing machines to the nervous system, you get really weird technologies,” he tells Pelley. “You get things that no one could’ve have conceived of.”
DR. JON LAPOOK RECORDS THE EFFECTS OF ALZHEIMER’S ON A PATIENT AND HER HUSBAND OVER A 10-YEAR PERIOD, THIS SUNDAY ON “60 MINUTES”
The Long-term Report of Devastating Disease May Be Unprecedented
As baby boomers move into old age and live longer, the potential number of Alzheimer’s sufferers in the U.S. may reach record levels. CBS News chief medical correspondent Dr. Jon LaPook follows an Alzheimer’s patient and her caregiver husband for 10 years in an unprecedented report that shows future sufferers and their caregivers what they may face. “For Better or for Worse” will be broadcast on 60 MINUTES Sunday, April 22 (7:00-8:00 PM, ET/PT) on the CBS Television Network.
The Alzheimer’s Foundation told 60 MINUTES it is unaware of any other video study of this length documenting the progression of the disease, which has no cure.
LaPook chronicles a loving husband’s increasing burden as he cares for the woman he loves as she slowly disappears in front of his eyes. The story of Mike and Carol Daly of Staten Island, N.Y., is a sweet and sad journey from better to worse.
In her first interview, Carol’s memory is slipping, but she knows how old she is; she is active and can still do her job at the bank. In just three years, she no longer knows her age, and her lack of concentration makes it impossible for her to read or watch movies. As LaPook records her mental and physical decline, he also reports Mike’s parallel emotional erosion.
The Alzheimer’s Foundation warns of the dangerous stress caring for a patient can cause. The upbeat can-do attitude Mike displays early in the report fades toward the end, coinciding with Carol’s descent into complete helplessness. “I’m dying. I really think I am. The stress – they thought I had a heart attack to begin with,” he tells LaPook “They wanted to put me in the hospital. I can’t go to the hospital. What do I do with Carol?”
Eventually, Mike has to hire someone to help him take care of Carol. It is another expense adding to the expense of this disease, which costs the Dalys $40,000 per year. That cost is for home care. Nursing home care, inevitable in many cases, is much more.
Alzheimer’s forced Mike and Carol to switch roles, says Mike. He tells LaPook he does the household chores Carol once did, and now he must care for her, too. When LaPook says to Mike, “That’s not what you signed up for,” he replies, “Yes I did. “When we took our oath, it’s for better or for worse.”
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