The theme for this year's Japan World Expo seems to be robots. The robots at the information booths are modelled to look like young girls and speak 40'000 phrases in each Japanese, Chinese, English and Korean. Voice recognition software allows the guests to converse with the robot naturally, and facial expressions are modelled down to the detail of eyelashes.

There will also be box-shaped security robots walking around the floor, which will sound sirens and wireless contact (human) security personel if it discovers fire or "suspicious people" (whatever that means). The robot also has a touch panel so that guests can interface with it (asking it for directions, for example), and obviously the robot will try to emphasize its role as a "walking map" as opposed to some sort of security camera, to ease human-robot relations.

Another robot, PaPeRo, will "watch over children" &emdash; the article is fuzzy on how much responsibility NEC, its maker, is willing to assume, but apparently it is capable of remembering what child it is caring after, and will go seek out children that it notices are missing. When all is well, PaPeRo will entertain the children by singing songs and quizzing them, recognizing and praising the child who answers correctly, even if multiple answers are shouted simultaneously.

There are also robot mascots: A tyrannosaurus rex and a parasaurolophus will stroll around the grounds, growling for the crowd.

Toyota will be presenting an all-robot band composed of an MC, a trumpet, tuba, trombone and horn player, as well as a drummer. The MC will interface with the crowd to determine the genre of music to play next (the range given in the article is "from brass band to rap"), and then coordinate the other robots, and sometimes even invite a (human) guest up onto the stage for certain performances.