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While robots are a long way from matching human emotional complexity, Japan has become perhaps the closest to a future - once the stuff of science fiction - where humans and intelligent robots routinely live side by side and interact socially. Robots are already taken for granted in Japanese factories, so much so that they are sometimes welcomed on their first day at work with Shinto religious ceremonies. Robots make sushi. Robots plant rice and tend paddies. There are robots serving as receptionists, vacuuming office corridors, spoon feeding the elderly. They serve tea, greet company guests, and chatter away at public technology displays. Now startups are marching out robotic home helpers.