The World Expo 2010 held in Shanghai May 1 to October 31 and seen by 60 million visitors, showcased robots in many forms: guides to factory assistants, rescue bots to underwater research. Themed to focus on the cities of the future, the biggest draws were the Oil Industry Pavilion and their 4D “Oil Dream” movie; Saudi Arabia's slow-moving walkway as amazing cinematography flew all around in a surreal visual experience; and the US and China Pavilions for their technological prowess and richness of spirit. youTube videos of the four are here: [1] [2] [3] [4].

Certainly the most focused was RobotWorld 2010 held in Seoul October 28-31 where South Korea aims to become one of the world's top three robot powerhouses by 2013. Standouts were sophisticated kiosks, coffee-making robots, vacuums, kindergarten teaching assistants, and Curexo's Robodoc.

TIROS 2010, Taipei October 19-22 aimed to increase market awareness of the fast growing robotic industry in Taiwan with IROS workshops focused on intelligent robotics and a big expo displaying senior support robots, Roomba look-alikes, rescue robots and teacher/therapy bots.

A humorous insight into one aspect of the Shanghai expo is this entry on The Art of Queue Jumping.

A serious insight is a plan, formalized in 2006, to implement an indigenous innovation political and economic campaign for the Chinese nation to surpass the West in science and technology. The plan is “steeped in suspicion of outsiders.” It explicitly states that a key tool will be through tweaking foreign technology and defines “indigenous innovation” as “enhancing original innovation through co-innovation and re-innovation based on the assimilation of imported technologies.”