The robot that staves off loneliness for chronically ill children

A Norwegian startup company has created an automaton that helps children with long-term sickness be part of normal life again

As a rule of thumb, the best ideas are the simplest. That's easy to forget in an age of rapid technological innovation, when the tendency is to be led by capability rather than need.

For as Karen Dolva, co-founder of the Norwegian startup No Isolation, says: "There are a lot of engineers who don't want to make something useful - they want to make something cool."