The Economist: Robots are coming back into fashion. Worldwide sales of multipurpose, industrial robots grew by 17% in volume last year, according to a joint survey by the International Federation of Robotics and the United Nations. Japan has over 350,000 robots in operation, the world's biggest stock. But Europe is catching up. In 1994, Europe had only a third as many robots as Japan. Ten years later, it had three-quarters as many. /Source/
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Executive Summary of World Robotics 2005 (pdf)