(Bloomberg) -- Amid a growing shortfall of qualified nurses in the U.K., students and professors at Imperial College London are developing a robot with dexterous 3D-printed fingers to assist the elderly or physically-challenged. Will it speak Tagalog?
A modified version of a robot nicknamed Baxter, the machine has two mechanical arms, an animated face, as well as sensors to help it analyze patterns and detect if a human user is struggling to lift or move a limb.
"There’s an increasing need for technologies that will allow people to maintain their independence, and through that, satisfy their fundamental human desire for privacy and dignity," Yiannis Demiris, the director of the personal robotic laboratory at Imperial, said in an interview.