Nurse robot Riba

What could be scarier than waking up in a hospital with a giant teddy bear robot nurse at your bedside? Perhaps a giant Hello Kitty robot nurse. But I digress.

Riba, short for Robot for Interactive Body Assistance, can lift elderly patients from wheelchairs and beds. Developers at Japan's state-run Riken research center are calling it the world's first robot to lift people in its arms.

It's probably also the world's first robot to do so with strings and flutes playing daintily in the background, as heard in an odd Reuters video on YouTube. Anyway, Riba can move patients weighing up to 134 pounds in its foam-padded paws. Its cute face is designed to make the 400-pound bear-machine less imposing. Very kawaii.

Thankfully, there are no plans for immediate commercialization, according to Riken, which added ominously that Riba will be deployed to hospitals in Japan over the next five years.

Can you bear it?