Robotic Nation Evidence

This post discussed the ability of robots to take over marital counselling in the near furure. The following article shows another form of therapy that robots are practicing in Japan:

In gadget-loving Japan, robots get hugs in therapy sessions

From the article:

Finding that the patients favor fuzzy and huggable items, Tamura dressed the metallic Aibo in soft clothing. He'd like to give the robot additional features, such as the ability to monitor a patient's blood pressure or body temperature.

Tamura and colleagues recently published research that found that some patients' activity, such as talking, watching and touching, increased with the introduction of the robot in therapy sessions.

Speaking of Aibo, it is interesting to look at Sony's Aibo Web site and see what this robot, now in version ERS-7, is capable of today. When I visit the site, the tag line is, "From the first day you interact with AIBO, it will become your companion." Here's what the site has to say:

In autonomous mode, the ERS-7 walks more fluidly, plays soccer with its Pink Ball, plays with its AIBOne, sits, lies down, rights itself, and even self-charges. The ERS-7 also uses its newly developed Illume-Face, tail, ears, lights, and MIDI sounds to express a wide variety of emotions (happiness, sadness, fear, dislike, surprise, anger) and instincts (play, search, hunger, sleep), to entertain you. The ERS-7 also now pays special attention to its owner thanks to new Owner’s Face and Voice Recognition technology.

Using your PC and wireless network (IEEE 802.11b), you can remotely control the ERS-7. You can remotely view pictures the ERS-7 takes and send e-mail commands to have the ERS-7 play pre-recorded messages and songs to others at home.

One can only imagine what it will be able to do in 20 years...