The Swirling Brain sent us a Digital Chosunilbo news article about the coming deployment of Public Service Helper Robots (PSHRs) in 20 post offices in Korea. The robots will assist customers with tasks like checking postal codes. The PSHR is one version of a more general robot called the Information Contents Robot (ICR) or the Ubiquitous Robotic Companion (URC). The ICR will also be deployed soon for healthcare applications which include taking care of diabetics and reading stories to children. The Korea Ministry of Information and Communication hopes to deploy one million broadband connected ICR robots to apartment buildings by 2007. The robots were developed by ETRI and Next Eye. One version of the robot seems to be pictured in the ETRI site banner. A rendering of another UCR robot can be found in an older Korean Times story.