Japanese working on dementia care products

Tokyo

"PEPPER, dear, when is the next time you'll visit?" "Look over here!" In a third-floor lounge at Nishi-Koigakubo Ninjin Home, a special elderly nursing home in western Tokyo, elderly dementia patients recently spent time with Pepper, a humanoid robot with artificial intelligence being developed by SoftBank Mobile.

Said to be the world's first robot designed to serve people by recognising their emotions, Pepper is set to retail for 198,000 yen (S$2,235) on the consumer market in February.