"Robot, call 911." Humanoid robot, still in development, designed to be human caregiver

American Honda Motor Co. is showing off a humanoid robot that can climb stairs, run 4 miles per hour and may someday help care for the elderly and disabled.

Asimo, a robot that has been more than 20 years in the making, is being demonstrated at the Kennedy Center in Washington. Part of the Japan Culture and Hyperculture festival, the live 15-minute demonstrations start today and run through Sunday, Feb. 17.

"A lot of people think of Honda as just a car company or motorcycles, but Honda likes to think of itself as a mobility company," said Alicia Jones, a spokeswoman for the company. "We like to enhance people's mobility. The idea behind Asimo is that it would someday be a helper to people inside their homes, maybe the disabled or the elderly."

Rice engineers, TIRR doctors kick off 2-year study of robotic rehab system
Robotics engineers at Rice University are teaming with doctors from Memorial Hermann|TIRR to develop a PC-based system for physical rehabilitation.

"It can take months of physical therapy for stroke patients to regain the use of their limbs," said system architect Marcia O'Malley, director of Rice's Mechatronics and Haptic Interfaces Laboratory (MAHI). "We hope to refine our system to allow patients to recover faster and to allow therapists to more precisely monitor patients' recovery."

O'Malley and Memorial Hermann|TIRR doctors this fall began a two-year study of a prototype rehabilitation system developed at MAHI that uses a joystick to help patients with eye-to-hand coordination. The study involved 16 patients. In one exercise, the patients use the joystick to move an object from one part of the computer screen to another. Like all the systems in O'Malley's lab, the rehab program uses force-feedback technology called "haptics" that allow people to "feel" their environment while they are in virtual reality.