Selwyn Retirement Village in Auckland would take services of "Charlie"-the Korean robot-for helping residents. It is a collective effort of Auckland University's Robotics Centre and Korea's Electronics and Telecommunications Research Unit.

The robot is a result of a survey by the university in which it has found that people associated with the village are looking for a hi-tech helper.

Bruce MacDonald, from University's Electrical and Computer Engineering Department, is optimistic about its benefits to the elderly ones by maintaining two-way communication. MacDonald added, "We are going to show them some of the things a robot could do and we are interested in their feedback. Then we will modify the robot to adjust for those things."

Meanwhile, staff is more interested to use the Korean YUJIN robot for monitoring health conditions and providing reminders and alerts instead of taking away their jobs.

However, MacDonald declined the possibility of job losses and made it clear that it would be helpful to address the problem of staff shortage by effectively providing personal care, assessing moods and some medical services.