Honda believes that robots will become its most important business

That's a claim made in this short update on commercial robots. It seems they're starting to take off and be used in real applications outside of factories, such as a 1 meter tall doctors assistant and a sentry robot. As the article explains, much of the drive seems to be coming from economic imperatives brought on Japan, such as an aging population and declining birthrates. The last half of the article goes into some technical details concerning the need for standard components and operating systems for robots - so people can focus on important tasks such as the robot's AI and vision.