An extra hand in the kitchen.

This would be for people that live in places with small kitchens where you couldn't have a dishwasher and have limited counter-space.

Mount a set of arms that are on rails attached to the underside of your kitchen cabinets. This would allow the arms to slide over and wash the dishes in the sink and then put them in the dish rack for drying. Once dry they could then put the dishes in the cabinet and utensils in the drawers. With proper image recognition sensors it might also be able to pick up things like spices and put them into their place as well.

The key is that the arms are no more than 1 meter long and fold flatly to about 5cm thickness under the cabinet. I think that using multiple suction points instead of pincers would be much more effective in picking up different shapes and sizes of dishes. Except for utensils.

Edit: Thinking more about this you could use a three point suction system to pick up dishes, and with a single smaller suction to pick up some flatware though it would need to be wide enough (+1cm).

The cleaning system would be based around the steam cleaning devices that are sold as mops and whatnot.http://www.amazon.com/Astar-Steam-Cleaner-Steamer-Shipping/dp/B00C6SMBGK

So It would drop an arm down into the sink, when it makes contact it suctions onto a dish, then the second arm sprays the steam. The first arm would then release a suction point so the steam could clean underneath it, thereby always having 2 points of connection to the dishes. The steam cleaning would also mean that it wouldn't require large amounts of water or a scrubber to get the dishes clean. You could also have an attachment so that the steam arm could sterilize the counter tops with a spray and attached wiper/squeegee.

Edit 2: It will now have a roll down screen that extends outward and blocks overspray of the steam, as well as ensures that all particles drop into the sink.