As a complement to our article yesterday on iRobot's future strategy in personal assistants, here's a video of the company's CEO, Colin Angle, at TEDMED 2009. It's a "must see" for those who follow the company closely. Concerning medical assistance to the elderly or increasingly dependent, it's e…
The NewFund investment fund has just invested 27% of capital in the French company MedTech. MedTech is developing a neurosurgery robot named Rosa. According to the Midi Libre newspaper and the CEO of MedTech, Bertin Nahum, the robot "makes surgical procedures safe and reliable, whilst allowing …
Cory Kidd, an inventor at MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology), has developed a coach robot which helps people who need to to lose weight. In fact, the robot tells those who have the willpower what they need to hear. It helps them by telling them their diet, by repeating to them what the…
The Robotic mouth or how to imitate a human voice. This video is starting to tour the web, mainly due to the unusual appearance of the mouth and the very special sound it emits. But, don't be fooled by appearances, this is serious. It's a prototype for hearing-impaired people by the Japanese K…
James Corrigan is 72 years old and is a patient robot especially designed for nurses. The University of Houston-Victoria in America has decided to acquire this human simulator. As Victoria Advocate says, this robotic patient is dying of lung cancer but with a quick reboot he'll be all better. In …
Rather than resorting to human guinea-pigs to practice the dental profession, Japan has decided to create its own guinea-pig robot, always ready to be operated on in the mouth. Hanako the female robotic patient can salivate, have a runny nose, move her eyes and express pain by speaking. She ope…
Researchers at McGill University in Montreal (Canada) have just created DNA nanotubes which can deliver "tiny drugs" to diseased cells. The method used: the researchers take the DNA out of its biological context and rather than using the genetic code for life, it acts as a kind of building block f…
Hospi is an autonomous robot created by Panasonic and intended for South Korean hospitals. Hospi can move around patients' rooms and serve meals, clean laundry, medication, X-rays, documents to sign, etc. This type of robot has been used in hospitals in Japan since 2006. Equipped with a video …
Virtopsy laboratory for the Medical-Legal Institute of the University of Berne in Switzerland, has developed Virtobot, a robot capable of conducting autopsies on cadavers without opening them up. According to TSR.ch, the device, in addition to this feat, makes it possible to retain autopsy data …
Engineers at the University of Michigan, Kuo and Steve Collins, have developed a bionic foot prosthesis cutting efforts by 30 % compared to classic prosthesis. Its principle is based on the recycling of energy between two steps in order to increase its strength. This is the first prosthesis th…
RoboPharma, a robotics technology adapted to the healthcare sector, will distribute medications in a British hospital, University Hospital of North Staffordshire. This robot who can distribute prescriptions to nurses and doctors in less than 20 seconds costs 345,000 euro. The robot which is 6 m…
The RP-7 robot resembles a great boot fitted with a screen and a video camera. It is 5 foot tall (1.52 m) and allows patients and hospital staff to communicate with doctors at anytime. In addition one can connect it to electronic measuring devices (stethoscopes, otoscopes and ultrasounds) to tr…
Here is a wheelchair robot that can serve the elderly, disabled, or handicapped. The innovation in this type of technology is that the chair supports you in all your movements. For example, you lean forward and it goes forward. You turn to the right and the chair follows. The sensors on the ba…
