Robot Baby...Creepy or comforting?

Creepy or comforting? A new study at a retirement home shows that the symptoms of depression in seniors were helped when they interacted with a "robot" baby. The Babyloid prototype costs around $25,718, but holding it for a mere 90 minutes a day, broken up into seven to eight minute sessions, was therapeutic. "The basic design, with a simplified, smiling face, was chosen to avoid the creepiness a realistic baby face can have, says developer Massayoshi Kanoh, a professor at Chukyo University in Japan. The mechanical infant can blink, smile, move its arms and flash red lights, which indicate it is content, and blue lights, which means it is unhappy and needs to be rocked to be comforted. It makes over 100 different sounds father of three Kanoh rerecorded his youngest daughter when she was an infant. It weighs almost five pounds and is about one and a half feet long. The theory behind the Babyloid is that by stimulating childcare, the elderly will feel useful, experience reduced depression and keep their minds sharp. Kanoh hopes that once the item is in mass production, it should retail for under $2,000 in the commerical market. (National Examiner)

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