Henry Evans has been using a two-armed PR2 robot created by Willow Garage to shave himself — since a stroke left him mute and partly paralyzed 10 years ago.

But Evans cannot yet be left alone with PR2. That will require it to respond to commands more intelligently, and cope with unexpected problems — such as a person getting in its way.

Some of these refinements are already in development. Willow Garage engineers, and a researcher from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, recently developed software that enables the robot to figure out for itself how to best grasp an object (see video).