A while ago, I reported on the Oboe, a concept robot that does nothing but stand and record the experiences of someone you love with its fancy spherical hard drive. I remember thinking that someone should make a robot that should assist the elderly now, and not just preserve their memories for later.

Someone has apparently heard my wishes and created the ApriAttenda robot, which is intended to assist the elderly. This little one-meter tall robot has the astromech droid appearance of R2D2, but with the arms of C3PO.

Its arms are versatile, and can open doors and refrigerators, as well as handle things that senior citizens might not be able to lift anymore. You have to wonder if you are looking at an age where the elderly are being cared for by robots.

Of course, why stop with having robots take care of the elderly? I mean, couldn’t these guys be nanny-bots as well? Is it possible that these robot arms could gently lift and cuddle newborn babies? I don’t know if I would want to offer my children to this ApriAttenda for their care.

Well, we are obviously looking at a robot age, where the robots will do all the jobs that no one else really wants to do. Does anyone want to know the repercussions of that era? Leave that to science-fiction writers.

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