Healthcare Robotics: El-E the Companion Robot

My friends will tell you that I fully expect to have and enjoy a relational robot in a caretaking role through my declining years. Turns out, Georgia Tech is on top of that:

Researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology have engineered a biologically inspired robot that mirrors the actions of sought-after service dogs. Users verbally command the robot to complete a task and the robot responds once a basic laser pointer illuminates the location of the desired action…

Employing this technology, users can accomplish basic yet challenging missions such as opening doors, drawers and retrieving medication. “It’s a road to get robots out there helping people sooner,” said Professor Charlie Kemp, Georgia Tech Department of Biomedical Engineering.

On a somewhat related note, three University of Florida engineering students built an ObamaBot in two weeks with spare parts and $250 of their own money. Endgadget has a photo; The Alligator has a slideshow of the students showing off their bot.