When do you call a metal arm on which an ipad can sit a robot?

From the Presence newsletter I received the news items labelled:

"The robot that doesn’t roam: KUBI ditches the wheels for stronger interaction".

But to my surprise when I followed the link to the Revolve Robotics website (the manufacturer of KUBI), it just showed a metal arm that is fixed to the location but very moveable.

This development of KUBI is interesting to me since I did appropriate existing software and devices for my Teletalker system too. To me it was obvious that Telepresence did not need wheels, when it's about connecting two static locations. But now I wonder, when do you actually call a device or a construction a robot?

Comments welcome.

 

Paper: "Older people and online social interactions: an empirical investigation"

The "Older people being online" - research conducted by Open University mirrors very much my research findings during my requirements collections phase (before I decided to build the Teletalker as a tool to demonstrate the benefits of online connectivity to older people www.teletalker.org).

Their initial findings are: "

• that older people need an incentive to get and stay online;
• that relatives and trainers need to structure their help and use repetitive strategies to aid retention; 
• that social networking is a step further than most older people take while email, Skype, and closed mailing lists or forums related to their interests are the most common applications for social interactions."

Read the full paper here.

I find particularly interesting their reflections on the research process, which shows that the research had become an act of collaboration between older people and researchers rather than a directional investigation. In my view it's not easily possible to research older people empirically without getting involved in some way. 

Now, I'm wondering whether this would be true for researching any age group (which most likely is because it involves human beings).