Breastfeeding Robots

http://technology.newscientist.com/channel/tech/robots/dn12980-androids-in-pain-and-breastfeeding-baby-bots.html

15:48 29 November 2007
NewScientist.com news service
New Scientist staff and Reuters

Japan’s premier robot event offers visitors the chance to find a high-tech ping-pong opponent, see an android dental patient twitch in pain, and to nurse baby robots in the same afternoon.

Showcasing around 1000 industrial and service robots, the International Robot Exhibition in Tokyo confirmed Japan’s enthusiasm for robots, many of which manufacturers hope to adapt to the needs of an ageing population.

Employees of Yamazaki Educational Systems, for example, were busy nursing four baby robots who cried and burped enthusiastically. The $620 robots are meant to help teach soon-to-be parents how to care for infants.

“Opportunities to see kids in society are decreasing,” says company representative Kaoru Nukui, referring to the sharp fall-off in births in Japan that means many families have only one child.

“The way students would touch a baby would be completely different once they have looked, touched, and experienced this ‘baby’,” he adds, before demonstrating a nipple-like sensor that can be used to “breast feed” each baby.
Programmed pain

Nearby, a female android on a dentist’s chair also drew the crowds. Simroid, a $635,000 android, was developed by Japanese company Kokoro as a dummy patient for dental students. See a video of Simroid in action here.

“That’s painful!” Simroid says, twitching and blinking when a student pressed her teeth too hard with a tool. Her chest also rose and fell as if she was breathing.

“Previous dummies … looked obviously different from humans, so the students may have been a little careless,” says Satoshi Uzuka of the Nippon Dental University Hospital, which co-developed the android. “They are now as tense as when treating a real patient.”