Back in Feburary, Boston Dynamics was on top of the robotics world. It just released a video of a two-legged humanoid robot named Atlas that did many things humans could do; it walked through snow, picked up boxes and could even pick itself up when knocked over. The video had been watched over 14 million times, and the consensus was that BD, along with its parent company Google, were at the leaders in robot technology.
However behind the scenes, more humane events were transpiring and now reports are coming in that Alphabet, owner of Google and thus Boston Dynamics, is looking to sell the robotics firm just three months after purchasing it.
It turns out that despite being perceived as being the forerunners in robot technology, Alphabet saw no way for Boston Dynamics to translate that tech into profitable, commercial products. The reason for this may be due to the very reason it gained its notoriety: innovation. Discussions about robots inevitably lead to discussions about them overthrowing mankind and when coupled with the knowledge that Boston Dynamics has ties with military projects, you get a company that can actually produce that which they fear.
"There's excitement from the tech press, but we're also starting to see some negative threads about it being terrifying, ready to take humans' jobs," wrote Courtney Hohne, a director of communications at Google, after BD's most recent video.
Of course, the lack of foreseen profitability wasn't due to a lack of effort on the robotics company's part. The firm had worked with the U.S. military to develop a Legged Squad Support System, or LS3, that could carry soldiers' equipment and other objects while on the field. The problem? It was too noisy. There is no viability in a massive robot that had no battle capabilities and would only serve to give away a soldier's location, so the project was scrapped.
The business side of things weren't the only parts that plagued Boston Dynamics, it was troubled internally as well. Tensions between Boston Dynamics and the rest of Google's robot engineers in California and Tokyo were made known to the majority of Google when parts of a meeting from Nov. 11 and several e-mails were unwittingly published to an online forum.
The results of this fallout was a clear indicator for what was coming ahead. Whereas other robotics teams were placed into a research group known as Google X, Boston Dynamics was left unplaced. As such, with Alphabet execs looking for a way to trim its portfolio of research and development projects, it seems BD is getting unplugged and going up on the market.
So where does this leave Boston Dynamics? Its not in too bad a spot actually. Possible buyers include the Toyota Resarch Institute, a division of Toyota Motor Corp., as well as Amazon, which in 2012 purchased Kiva Systems for $775.
This is unfortunate news for Google's robotics division, which had been subject to speculation from analysts and media reports about whether Google could create a viable business centered around robotics. On at least one front it has proven them wrong though, with its Deepmind Mind unit and its AlphaGo program defeating world champion Go player Lee Sedol in four games out of a five game set.
Check out Boston Dynamic's Atlas in the video below:
