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GeckoSystems' Elder Care Robot Trials, Week One
(Market Wire Via Acquire Media NewsEdge) CONYERS, GA -- (MARKET WIRE) -- 11/23/09 --
GeckoSystems Intl. Corp. (PINKSHEETS: GCKO)
(http://www.geckosystems.com/) announced today that during their first week
of real world evaluation trials, for their fully autonomous personal
companion home care robot, the CareBot(TM), they have progressed nicely.
GeckoSystems is a dynamic leader in the emerging Mobile Service Robot (MSR)
industry revolutionizing their development and usage with "Mobile Robot
Solutions for Safety, Security and Service(TM)."
"Practical, cost effective mobile robot solutions are our primary goal. We
were very pleased to begin last week our first in-home trials of this new
assistive care home appliance, a customizable personal companion robot with
telepresence capabilities. During this first week we have learned some
important, but seemingly simple insights, such as the appropriate voice
synthesis characteristics needed by the elderly with hearing loss, for
example. This has been an important insight as we are integrating our
CareBot into the home environment. We have been using the end user
interface to customize the voice reproduction (synthesis) in our verbal
interaction software, GeckoChat(TM), such that the care receiver can
readily understand timely (using GeckoScheduler(TM)) verbal reminders for
their medications, upcoming TV shows, family visits, etc. Now we begin
proving our long held belief that personal companion mobile robots, like
the CareBot, can help tens of thousands of families take better care of
their loved ones while saving significant monies," remarked Martin Spencer,
President/CEO, GeckoSystems.
"We have worked for some years to develop the ability for our CareBot MSR's
to intelligently listen and respond to spoken commands of the caregiver
and/or care receiver as we have learned in our extensive market research
(focus group) work. GeckoChat can be readily customized for words, phrases
and sentences to be recognized by the care receiver and appropriate,
desirable responses by the family," observed Spencer.
"We developed the CareBot primarily for family care. Hence a simple and
intuitive user interface is extremely important. This pushed us into
developing verbal interaction functionality using artificial intelligence
(AI) technologies several years ago," stated Mark Peele, Vice President,
R&D, GeckoSystems.
While personal robots cannot reliably sense and respond to human emotions,
due to the many different means available to the end user, CareBot persona
can be easily customized as to voice tonality, cadence, pitch, breathiness,
volume, choice of words, etc. Further, the words and/or phrases chosen in
response to anticipated questions to the CareBot can be colloquial in the
word choice and approximate the native dialect using various user settings
in the software and/or hardware. With the foregoing capabilities there is
now a new type of surrogate companion, not only for the elderly, but also
other family members such as children and/or the chronically ill.
"GeckoChat continues the suite of our fundamental GeckoSavants(TM) with the
disparate, functional benefits needed to cost effectively provide utility
to families for remote care taking of their members and other loved ones by
making them more personal and uniquely adapted and addressed to the
particular person to be assisted. Not only does this capability enable new
forms of social interaction and community for families -- even when
dispersed geographically -- it will also increase ROI for our investors,"
remarked Spencer.
Like an automobile, mobile robots are made from steel, aluminum, plastic,
and electronics, but with ten to twenty times the amount of software
running. The CareBot has an aluminum frame, plastic shroud, two
independently driven wheels, multiple sensor systems, microprocessors and
several onboard computers connected in a local area network (LAN). The
microprocessors directly interact with the sensor systems and transmit data
to the onboard computers. The onboard computers each run independent,
highly specialized cooperative/subsumptive artificial intelligence (AI)
software programs, GeckoSavants, which interact to complete tasks in a
timely, intelligent and common sense manner. GeckoNav(TM), GeckoChat(TM)
and GeckoTrak(TM) are primary GeckoSavants. GeckoNav is responsible for all
fully autonomous maneuvering, such as avoiding dynamic and/or static
obstacles, running errands and patrolling. GeckoChat is responsible for
interaction with the care receiver such as answering questions, assisting
with daily routines and reminders, and responding to other verbal commands.
GeckoTrak, which is mostly transparent to the user, enables the CareBot to
maintain proximity to the care receiver using sensor fusion. The CareBot is
an internet appliance that is accessible for remote video/audio monitoring
and telepresence.
"With these in-home trials now progressing nicely, we have already learned
a great deal as to the reality of social interaction between human and
robot in-home settings and its very important potential positive impact on
the internal dynamics of the extended family using a CareBot to communicate
their desire to cherish, honor and watch over their neediest family
members," concluded Spencer.
About GeckoSystems International Corporation:
Since 1997, GeckoSystems has developed a comprehensive, coherent, and
sufficient suite of hardware and software inventions to enable a new type
of home appliance (a personal robot) the CareBot(TM), to be created for the
mass consumer marketplace. The suite of primary inventions includes:
GeckoNav(TM), GeckoChat(TM) and GeckoTrak(TM).
The primary market for this product is the family for use in eldercare,
care for the chronically ill, and childcare. The primary distribution
channel for this new home appliance is the thousands of independent
personal computer retailers in the U.S. The manufacturing infrastructure
for this new product category of mobile service robots is essentially the
same as the personal computer industry. Several outside contract
manufacturers have been identified and qualified their ability to produce
up to 1,000 CareBots per month within four to six months.
The Company is market driven. At the time of founding, nearly 12 years ago,
the Company did extensive primary market research to determine the
demographic profile of the early adopters of the then proposed product
line. Subsequent to, and based on that original market research, they have
assembled numerous focus groups to evaluate the fit of the CareBot personal
robot into the participant's lives and their expected usage. The Company
has also frequently employed the Delphi market research methodology by
contacting and interviewing senior executives, practitioners, and
researchers knowledgeable in the area of elder care. Using this factual
basis of internally performed primary and secondary market research, and
third party research is the statistical substance for the Company's sales
forecasts.
Not surprisingly the scientific statistical analyses applied revealed that
elderly over sixty-five living alone in metropolitan areas with broadband
Internet available and sufficient household incomes to support the
increased costs were identified as those most likely to adopt initially.
Due to the high cost of assisted living, nursing homes, etc. the payback
for a CareBot(TM) is expected to be only six to eight months while keeping
elderly care receivers independent, in their own long time homes, and
living longer due to the comfort and safety of more frequent attention from
their loved ones.
Using U.S. Census Bureau data and various predictive statistical analyses,
the Company projects the available consumer market size in dollars for cost
effective, utilitarian, multitasking eldercare personal robots in 2010 to
be $74.0B, in 2011 to be $77B, in 2012 to be $80B, in 2013 to be $83.3B,
and in 2014 to be $86.6B. With market penetrations of 0.03% in 2010, 0.06%
in 2011, 0.22% in 2012, 0.53% in 2013, and 0.81% in 2014, we will
anticipate CareBot sales, from this consumer market segment, only, of
$22.0M, $44.0M, $176M, $440.2M, and $704.3M, respectively. The Company
expects these sales despite -- and perhaps because of -- the present
recession due to pent up demand for significant cost reduction in eldercare
expenses.
The foregoing forecasts do not include sales in non-metropolitan areas;
elderly couples over 65 (only elderly living alone are in these forecasts);
those chronically ill -- regardless of age -- or elderly living with their
adult children.
The Company's "mobile robot solutions for safety, security and service(TM)"
are appropriate not only for the consumer, but also professional
healthcare, commercial security and defense markets. Professional
healthcare require cost effective, timely errand running, portable
telemedicine, etc. Homeland Security requires cost effective mobile robots
to patrol and monitor public venues for weapons and WMD detection. Military
users desire the elimination of the "man in the loop" to enable unmanned
ground and air vehicles to not require constant human control and/or
intervention.
The Company's business model is very much like that of an automobile
manufacturer. Due to the final assembly, test, and shipping being done
based on geographic and logistic realities; strategic business-to-business
relationships can range from private labeling to joint manufacturing and
distribution to licensing only.
Several dozen patent opportunities exist for the Company due to the many
innovative and cost effective breakthroughs embodied not only in GeckoNav,
GeckoChat, and GeckoTrak, but also in additional, secondary systems that
include: GeckoOrient(TM), GeckoMotorController(TM), the
GeckoTactileShroud(TM), the CompoundedSensorArray(TM), and the
GeckoSPIO(TM).
The present senior management at GeckoSystems has over thirty-five years
experience in consumer electronics sales and marketing and product
development. Senior managers have been identified for the areas of
manufacturing, marketing, sales, and finance.
While GeckoSystems has been in the Development Stage, the Company has
accumulated losses to date in excess of six million dollars. In contrast,
the Japanese government has spent one hundred million dollars in grants (to
Sanyo, Toshiba, Hitachi, Fujitsu, NEC, etc.) over the same time period to
develop personal robots for their eldercare crisis, yet no viable solutions
have been developed.
GeckoSystems is the first mobile robot developer in the world to begin
actual in-home eldercare evaluation trials.
What Does a CareBot Do for the Caregiver?
The short answer is that it decreases the difficulty and stress for the
caregiver that needs to watch over Grandma, Mom, or other family members
most, if not much, of the time day in and day out due to concerns about
their well being, safety, and security.
But, first let's look at some other labor saving, automatic home appliances
most of us use routinely. For example, needing to do two or more necessary
chores and/or activities at the same time, like laundering clothes and
preparing supper.
The automatic washing machine needs no human intervention after the dirty
clothes are placed in the washer, the laundry powder poured in, and the
desired wash cycle set. Then, this labor saving appliance runs
automatically until the washed clothes are ready to be placed in another
labor saving home appliance, the automatic clothes dryer. While the clothes
are being washed and/or dried, the caregiver prepares supper using several
time saving home appliances like the microwave oven, "crock" pot, blender,
and conventional stove, with possible convection oven capabilities.
After supper, the dirty pots, pans, and dishes are placed in the automatic
dishwasher to be washed and dried while the family retires to the den to
watch TV, and/or the kids to do homework. Later, perhaps after the kids
have gone to bed, the caregiver may then have the time to fold, sort, and
put up the now freshly laundered clothes.
So what does a CareBot do for the caregiver? It is a new type of labor
saving, time management automatic home appliance.
For example, the caregiver frequently feels time stress when they need to
go shopping for 2 or 3 hours, and are uncomfortable when they have to be
away for more than an hour or so. Time stress is much worse for the
caregiver with a frail elderly parent that must be reminded to take
medications at certain times of the day. How can the caregiver be away for
3-4 hours when Grandma must take her prescribed medication every 2 or 3
hours? If the caregiver is trapped in traffic for an hour or two beyond
the 2 or 3 they expected to be gone, this "time stress" can be very
difficult for the caregiver to moderate.
Not infrequently, the primary caregiver has a 24 hour, 7 days a week
responsibility. After weeks and weeks of this sometimes tedious, if not
onerous routine, how does the caregiver get a "day off?" To bring in an
outsider is expensive (easily $75-125 per day for just 8 hours) and there
is the concern that medication will be missed or the care receiver have an
accident requiring immediate assistance by the caregiver, or someone they
must designate. And the care receiver may be very resistant to a "stranger"
coming in to her home and "running things."
So what is it worth for a care receiver to have an automatic system to help
take care of Grandma? Just 3 or 4 days a month "off" on a daylong shopping
trip, a visit with friends, or just take in a movie would cost $225-500 per
month. And that scenario assumes that Grandma is willing to be taken care
of by a "stranger" during those needed and appropriate days off.
So perhaps, an automatic caregiver, a CareBot, might be pretty handy, and
potentially very cost effective from the primary caregiver's perspective.
What Does a CareBot Do for the Care Receiver?
It's a new kind of companion that always stays close to them enabling
family and friends to care for them from afar. It tells them jokes, retells
family anecdotes, reminds them to take medication, reminds them that family
is coming over soon (or not at all), recites Bible verses, plays favorite
songs and/or other music. It alerts them when unexpected visitors, or
intruders are present. It notifies designated caregivers when a
potentially harmful event has occurred, such as a fall, fire in the home,
or simply been not found by the CareBot for too long. It responds to calls
for help and notifies those that the caregiver determined should be
immediately notified when any predetermined adverse event occurs.
The family can customize the personality of the CareBot. The voice's
cadence can be fast or slow. The intonation can be breathy, or abrupt. The
voice's volume can range from very loud to very soft. The response phrases
from the CareBot for recognized words and phrases can be colloquial and/or
unique to the family's own heritage. The personality can range from brassy
to timid depending on how the caregiver, and others appropriate, chooses it
to be.
Generally, the care receiver is pleased at the prospect of family being
able to drop in for a "virtual visit" using the onboard webcam and video
monitor for at home "video conferencing." The care receiver may feel much
more needed and appreciated when their far flung family and friends can
"look in" on them any where in the world where they can get broadband
internet access and simply chat for a bit.
Why is Grandma really interested in a CareBot? She wants to stay in her
home, or her family's home, as long as she possibly can. What's that
worth? Priceless. Or, an average nursing home is $5,000 per month for an
environment that is too often the beginning of a spiral downward in the
care receiver's health. That's probably $2-3K more per month for them to
be placed where they really don't want to be. Financial payback on a
CareBot? Less than a year- Emotional payback for the family to have this
new automatic caregiver? Nearly instantaneous-
Safe Harbor:
Statements regarding financial matters in this press release other than
historical facts are "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of
Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933, Section 21E of the Securities
Exchange Act of 1934, and as that term is defined in the Private Securities
Litigation Reform Act of 1995. The Company intends that such statements
about the Company's future expectations, including future revenues and
earnings, technology efficacy and all other forward-looking statements be
subject to the Safe Harbors created thereby. The Company is a development
stage firm that continues to be dependent upon outside capital to sustain
its existence. Since these statements (future operational results and
sales) involve risks and uncertainties and are subject to change at any
time, the Company's actual results may differ materially from expected
results.
Contact:
GeckoSystems Intl. Corp.
www.GeckoSystems.com
Main number: 1-866-227-3268
International: +1 678-413-9236
Investor Relations:
Noah Clark, Jr.
Direct line: 1-678-413-1640
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