TTA Archives 2005-2012

A ‘once-over lightly’ by Investor’s Business Daily of robotics that mostly isn’t, focusing on in-hospital ‘telepresence robots’ for remote consults–really motorized telemedicine carts–and the companies in the field: InTouch [TA 3 Feb] which has deployed a ‘few hundred systems’ so far; Anybots (a cartoonish non-medical webcam on wheels profiled in Wired last year); iRobot (the Roomba cleaner). Telemedicine is lumped in, with an odd quote from Jon Linkous of ATA grouping Cisco with Hewlett-Packard and Polycom. From the article: “They’ve all “kicked the tires” in the medical telepresence field, says ATA’s Linkous “but (the market) doesn’t offer enough volume for them.” Except that just last Friday, we reported on Cisco’s latest developments with HealthPresence and the Polycom/Motorola XOOM tablet for healthcare [Telemedicine: big and small.] It may not be big, but they keep trying. The virtual doctor is in: robots in hospitals.