Google is in reportedly in talks of selling off their
robotics company Boston Dynamics. You know that company that posts those
awesome (and scary) videos of their animal-like and now human-like robots on
youtube garnering tens of millions of views.
Brief
History
Boston Dynamics
builds advanced robots with remarkable behavior: mobility, agility, dexterity
and speed. Boston Dynamics began as a spinoff from the Massachusetts Institute
of Technology in 1992 and does work with the military. They developed a robot
called BigDog and also one called Cheetah which is an animal-like robot
developed to run at high speeds.
In December 2013, Google acquired Boston Dynamics. The price and terms of the deal were not disclosed although Google indicated that contracts including a $10.8 million contract with the US Defense Agency Research Projects Agency (DARPA) would be honored.
In December 2013, Google acquired Boston Dynamics. The price and terms of the deal were not disclosed although Google indicated that contracts including a $10.8 million contract with the US Defense Agency Research Projects Agency (DARPA) would be honored.
Why
Sell?
There are reports that the purchase of Boston Dynamics by
google caused a shift in the leadership structure of the original company, with
Boston Dynamics’ engineers and Google’s engineers butting heads, this caused a
slow-down of Google’s original plan; to produce and ship affordable robots as
quickly as possible.
There is also a recent shift from positivity to negativity
on what the robots can actually do, mostly after the recently released video of
the Atlas robot. Originally the robot was to make it easier and safer for U.S.
military personals to scout dangerous mind-fields, assist in missions, but now
it seems that the sentiment is that these robots can take away the jobs of
average U.S. citizens, and we all know how much people care about their jobs
being mechanized.
So
now what?
It seems that the main buyers of Boston Dynamics would be
from Auto companies and manufacturing companies, such as Toyota or Amazon, for
their manufacturing and warehouse operations, but it seems that Google is not
ready (or terrified) that they might being overreaching with this project and
this company, and for what it can create, Terminator 6 anyone?
Original Report:
No comments:
Post a Comment