Japanese Robot Designed to Care for Elderly
Posted by Emru Townsend | Wednesday, March 15, 2006 9:42 AM PT
What do you do when your population's getting older? In North America, we look at revamping healthcare. In Japan, they -- what else? -- build robots. Preferably ones with cute beady eyes.
The robot in the image at left is the five foot-tall RI-MAN, whose eventual job will be to take care of the elderly. Right now RI-MAN can carry only light loads (the doll in the image is only 26 pounds), but it can follow a human's face or voice and distinguish between eight smells.
If you'd like to see how all this can go horribly, comically wrong, head to the anime section of your local video store and rent Katsuhiro Otomo's
Roujin Z. Just remember, Japan -- it's not like you weren't warned.
