You know, we've seen some NurseBots in our time, but never one quite so, um, homely. Given that EMMA didn't have much in the way of personality, but Pearl, here — oh dear. The deal here is that the Pearl autonomous mobile robot is designed to appeal to the elderly with an "expressive countenance" — but without looking too human because that creeps people out (tell us about it). She's endowed with a small vocabularly an some limited, machine-like AI in an experiment to try to improve the social interactions between orga and meccha. An interesting endeavor, but as Medgadget points out — are aid-dependent seniors really the ideal target population to beta-test this level of integration with our robotic overlords?