Far from being just cheesy sidekicks in B sci-fi movies robots are here, doing real world work. Adam Balkin tells us about some new technology.

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Some robots are purely for fun, while others are seriously improving the lives of those who use them. The latter is particularly true for robots coming out of the Quality of Life Technology Center in Pittsburgh. A collaboration between Carnegie Mellon University and the University of Pittsburgh, the center works on projects to help the elderly or people with disabilities. An example of one of those projects is PERMA, the Personal Mobility and Manipulation Appliance, which gives people in wheelchairs an extra set of arms...really long arms!

“They can reach above their head to get some things in their kitchen or they can pick up a TV remote,” said Hongwu Wang, Carnegie Mellon University.

The same center is also working on a robot kit called Romibo, for therapists looking for new ways to engage, for example, children with autism.

“In this kind of therapy the therapist works with the child with a robot as a kind of play therapy. It's kind of a toy which is very expressive and it's all intended to engage the child, to bring the child out of whatever state they're in to emotionally communicate with them,” said Garth Zeglin, Origami Robotics.

Even the folks who are arguably most responsible for making us comfortable with robots in our homes are thinking health care. Developers at iRobot are coupling technology from its Roomba robotic vacuum cleaner with an iPad to create a virtual doctor.

“We would tell it to go to point A or point B to get there and then it would navigate its way through obstacles and people to get there so one of the applications, for example, is in a healthcare environment in a hospital. You could have a doctor remotely diagnose patients as well as provide them with counsel and medication,” said Maurice Leacock, iRobot.

There are also plenty of robots designed purely for human entertainment, from dancing robots to racing robots.

And if you're a horrible artist, then you'll want to meet the most demoralizing robot set to hit the market, because now even this guy can draw better than I can. All you do is hook Tosy's SketRobo up to a computer and feed it a photo, which it'll turn into a sketch. Developers say eventually, this guy will just take your picture then sketch you.