The Cuddling Robot

See Japan doing whatever it can to cope with its aging population.

Business Design Laboratory Co, a Nagoya-based high-tech venture business, said Wednesday it has developed a 45-cm-tall “cuddling robot” for elderly people which is capable of conversing with them by using tens of thousands of input dialogue patterns.

If a person talks to the “ifbot” by saying, “Today, I’m in bad health,” it responds with, “Perhaps you are overtired. Why don’t you rest today?” The robot can put riddles to the elderly and play a quiz game, while always using respectful expressions in Japanese. It costs 604,800 yen. (Kyodo News)

The newsbit and image are from Japan Today.

Update (16/08/27): The image is no longer available.