Electronic Pets for the Elderly 'Will Combat Loneliness'

By Jonathan Richards, Times Online

United Kingdom

December 13, 2006
 

The elderly and alone may soon find solace in an ‘electronic pet’ capable of holding conversations and telling jokes, scientists have suggested.

The Companion – which has been dubbed ‘the older person’s Tamagotchi’ after the popular Japanese toy – will understand what it has been told, and will respond with appropriate information or questions.

British scientists working on the project hope that it will provide companionship for the millions of older people who live alone, as well as reminding them to take medicine and conducting basic health checks.

The device, which has no moving parts and will resemble a cuddly toy, uses the latest language-processing technologies to recognise the meaning of what has been said, researchers at the University of Sheffield said.

It will then respond - in an accent of the owner’s choosing – by drawing on relevant material from previous conversations.

"The Companion will be able to chat to you, tell jokes, even help you decide what TV programs to watch," Yorick Wilks, the project leader and professor of computer science at the university, said.

"Our aim is to build greater language capacity into the kinds of devices we’ve seen in the past, like Tamagotchi, which have not been capable of speech."

Scientists have made great advances in speech recognition, but have not yet been able to develop a machine which is capable of "semantic processing" – the ability to understand the context of a conversation.

"The Companion will demonstrate an ability to use politeness and humour in different types of dialogues, and display personality," said Professor Wilks, whose team has been given €12 million of EU funding and aims to have a product on the market within four years.

Professor Wilks’ report was one of a number presented at the Memories for Life conference in London, which addressed the issue of how computers’ increased ability to store information was affecting our relationship with the past.

Professor Nigel Shadbolt, of the University of Southampton, said that by 2026, a hard disk the size of a sugar cube could store video footage of a person’s entire life.

Tom Rodden, professor of computing at the University of Nottingham, said that there would be a range of new applications for sensors which were attached to people’s clothing and recorded bio-metric information, such as heart rate and voice.

"At fairgrounds there’s a demand from people who want to know how loud they screamed or how fast their heart beat during a particular ride," Professor Rodden said.

He also spoke about advances in ‘location-based services’, which combine the recording of personal and other types of information with global positioning systems.

Students, for instance, could now have a map of a savannah laid over their school grounds, and use a hand-held device to guide them around the buildings as they ‘tracked lions’, which were also on the move.

Cyclists fitted with sensors as they moved around London could also record carbon dioxide levels around the city, allowing those who pedal to work to find the most healthy route, he said.