Pearl, a Robot for the Elderly

Roland Piquepaille writes "The world population is rapidly aging -- at least in developed countries. The number of seniors will explode in the next two decades. So researchers everywhere are trying to find new ways to help elderly people to continue to live at home. This is why a team from Carnegie Mellon, the University of Pittsburgh, University of Michigan and Stanford University has spent the last four years to design Pearl, a robot specifically designed to help old people. Pearl has a humanoid aspect and is 4-feet high. Still, don't rush to the store to buy one for your old folks. It costs more than $100,000 and is not entirely ready for mass production. This overview contains more details and references. It also includes two pictures of the -- quite cute -- Pearl."

Comments

Interesting

[Scoria]

Still, don't rush to the store to buy one for your old folks. It costs more than $100,000 and is not entirely ready for mass production.

But I'd hire an assistant for that price. ;-)

$100,000

[Anonymous Coward]

I have two elderly (86, 90) parents who prefer to life by themselves away in Nevada, while I live in New York.

Since they can hardly take care of themselves, I hired almost-full time help to take care of them. I pay this person almost $80,000 a year for this.

A robot to do the same thing for a one time investment of $100,000 seems like a pretty good deal.

- John.

Re:What kind of logic is this?!

[bigberk]

Elderly people in developing countries are lacking **human contact**

Elderly people in the first world are lacking human contact! People throw their parents into homes and shrug them off until they're dead. In developing countries, families remain more close-knit and it's common to have the elderly parents living together with the family.

Medical Care

[Dan East]

So how is this thing supposed to determine if Granny is is a diabetic coma verses taking a sound nap?

Dan East

The cost

[fermion]

I wonder if 100K for such a machine is so outlandish. There is a significant segment of the population, at least in the US, that have 70K cars. And they apparantly can afford to put in $40 dollars of gas every week. If a robot could be leased for 20k a year, there might be enough customers to support a small production.

This is quite competative with humans, which seem to cost 25K for unskilled helpers to 60K for a nurse. If nothing else, the robots would be useful if full time help were unaffordable.