We are exploring how computation and communication can enrich the lives of older persons now and in the decades ahead. Gray Matters focuses on making the "third age" more fun, more energized and more connected than ever before. Longer life spans and better technologies mean more opportunities for new experiences, from wearable computing to online communities.

Hand-in-hand with the opportunities afforded by new technology is an obligation: The aging population has much to contribute to mankind's collective knowledge. Through the use of publishing tools such as Weblogs, older adults can document and preserve their memories, life experiences, stories and more. In addition, there is a need for large-scale collections of knowledge that models the common sense of both six and 60 year-olds. Rallying older adults in support of our effort to capture common knowledge about the world is a means of building an artificial intelligence (AI), the conceptual substrate on which all expert knowledge is formed.