Google has proven its serious interest in robotics after acquiring Boston Dynamics.
Boston Dynamics is an engineering and robotics design company popular for its creation of BigDog, a quadruped robot for the U.S military army, and DI-Guy equipped with realistic human simulation. The company has expertise in the development and creation of advanced robots with remarkable behaviors such as mobility, agility, dexterity and speed.
More than just an impressive product of engineering, the robots embody a strong approach to robot locomotion which may eventually create a huge impact on the way that future machines would move in our world.
Google is creating a huge wave into robotics. In the past couple of months, it has acquired seven robotics startups under the leadership of Andy Rubin, the same person that led the development of the OS in Android mobile. The tech giant has not disclosed yet what it intends to do on the robotics technologies it purchased.
According to MIT Technology Review, aside from the fact that Boston Dynamic’s robots can run at impressive speed and bound across rough terrain, its pioneering approach could come in handy with more mundane targets such as maintaining its balance when shoved accidentally and climbing a staircase.
Rubin previously told the New York Times that he would love to pursue his interest on real robots and even if he didn’t mention what kind of robots he would like to develop, he began purchasing robotics startups. He left the Android division to lead the robotics venture and surprisingly, Google CEO Sergey Brin was convinced on his robotics initiative.
“I have a history of making my hobbies into a career,” Mr. Rubin said in a telephone interview. “This is the world’s greatest job. Being an engineer and a tinkerer, you start thinking about what you would want to build for yourself.”
