Boston Dynamics Bought By Google. New Prototype at Link

[ARCHIVED THREAD] - Boston Dynamics Bought By Google. New Prototype at Link

Posted: 12/14/2013 7:28:37 AM EDT

http://gifsound.com/?gif=http%3A%2F%2Fi.imgur.com%2FmOtJQlW.gif&sound=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DI_izvAbhExY&start=0

A robot named BigDog, which can walk
over rough terrain, can also stay upright in response to a
well-placed human kick.

Google confirmed on Friday that it had
completed the acquisition of Boston Dynamics, an engineering company
that has designed mobile research robots for the Pentagon. The
company, based in Waltham, Mass., has gained an international
reputation for machines that walk with an uncanny sense of balance
and even — cheetahlike — run faster than the fastest humans.

It is the eighth robotics company that
Google has acquired in the last half-year. Executives at the Internet
giant are circumspect about what exactly they plan to do with their
robot collection. But Boston Dynamics and its animal kingdom-themed
machines bring significant cachet to Google’s robotic efforts,
which are being led by Andy Rubin, the Google executive who
spearheaded the development of Android, the world’s most widely
used smartphone software.

The deal is also the clearest
indication yet that Google is intent on building a new class of
autonomous systems that might do anything from warehouse work to
package delivery and even elder care.

Boston Dynamics was founded in 1992 by
Marc Raibert, a former professor at the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology. It has not sold robots commercially, but has pushed the
limits of mobile and off-road robotics technology, mostly for
Pentagon clients like the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency,
or Darpa. Early on, the company also did consulting work for Sony on
consumer robots like the Aibo robotic dog.

Boston Dynamics’ walking robots have
a reputation for being extraordinarily agile, able to walk over rough
terrain and handle surfaces that in some cases are challenging even
for humans.

A video of one of its robots named
BigDog shows a noisy, gas-powered, four-legged, walking robot that
climbs hills, travels through snow, skitters precariously on ice and
even manages to stay upright in response to a well-placed human kick.
BigDog development started in 2003 in partnership with the British
robot maker Foster-Miller, NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory and
Harvard.

The video has been viewed more than 15
million times since it was posted on YouTube in 2008.

More recently, Boston Dynamics
distributed a video of a four-legged robot named WildCat,
galloping in high-speed circles in a parking lot.

Although the videos frequently inspire
comments that the robots will evolve into scary killing machines
straight out of the "Terminator” movies, Dr. Raibert has said in
the past that he does not consider his company to be a military
contractor — it is merely trying to advance robotics technology.
Google executives said the company would honor existing military
contracts, but that it did not plan to move toward becoming a
military contractor on its own.

Under a $10.8 million contract, Boston
Dynamics is currently supplying Darpa with a set of humanoid robots
named Atlas to participate in the Darpa Robotics Challenge, a
two-year contest with a $2 million prize. The contest’s goal is
creating a class of robots that can operate in natural disasters and
catastrophes like the nuclear power plant meltdown in Fukushima,
Japan.

"Competitions like the Darpa Robotics
Challenge stretch participants to try to solve problems that matter
and we hope to learn from the teams’ insights around disaster
relief,” Mr. Rubin said in a statement released by Google.

Boston Dynamics has also designed
robots that can climb walls and trees as well as other two- and
four-legged walking robots, a neat match to Mr. Rubin’s notion that
"computers are starting to sprout legs and move around in the
environment.”

A recent video shows a robot named
Cheetah running on a treadmill. This year, the robot was clocked
running 29 miles per hour, surpassing the previous legged robot land
speed record of 13.1 m.p.h., set in 1999. That’s about one mile per
hour faster than Jamaica’sUsain Bolt, the two-time Olympic gold
medalist in the 100-meter dash. But it’s far short of a real
cheetah, which can hit 65 m.p.h.

Google’s other robotics acquisitions
include companies in the United States and Japan that have pioneered
a range of technologies including software for advanced robot arms,
grasping technology and computer vision. Mr. Rubin has also said that
he is interested in advancing sensor technology.

Mr. Rubin has called his robotics
effort a "moonshot,” but has declined to describe specific
products that might come from the project. He has, however, also said
that he does not expect initial product development to go on for
years, indicating that Google commercial robots of some nature could
be available in the next several years.

Google declined to say how much it paid
for its newest robotics acquisition and said that it did not plan to
release financial information on any of the other companies it has
recently bought.

Dr. Raibert is known as the father of
walking robots in the United States. He originally created the Leg
Lab, a research laboratory to explore walking machines at Carnegie
Mellon University in 1980. He then moved the laboratory to M.I.T.
before leaving academia to build engineering systems for the military
and Sony.

His research in walking robots began
with a pogo-stick project called "the hopper,” which he used to
test basic concepts.

"I am excited by Andy and Google’s
ability to think very, very big,” Dr. Raibert said, "with the
resources to make it happen.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/14/technology/google-adds-to-its-menagerie-of-robots.html

Posted: 12/14/2013 7:29:16 AM EDT

[#1]

Google = Skynet

Posted: 12/14/2013 7:29:43 AM EDT

[#2]

I'm cool with this.

Posted: 12/14/2013 7:38:54 AM EDT

[#3]

Google's clearly aiming to be the robotics powerhouse of the future.

Posted: 12/14/2013 7:41:52 AM EDT

[#4]

I know a guy whose company was bought out by a mega-corporation.

It's usually pretty nice for the founders. You get enough money to not care about money for the rest of your life, and can continue to work out of your passion for the work till you're sick of it.

Posted: 12/14/2013 7:53:30 AM EDT

[#5]

Quote History

Quoted:
I know a guy whose company was bought out by a mega-corporation.

It's usually pretty nice for the founders. You get enough money to not care about money for the rest of your life, and can continue to work out of your passion for the work till you're sick of it.

View Quote

Founder, yes. Workers, not so much. Either they lose their ability to be creative with work and must march to corporate rules written by idiots, or they get wiped out in the acquisition.

Posted: 12/14/2013 8:01:16 AM EDT

[#6]

Quote History

Quoted:

Founder, yes. Workers, not so much. Either they lose their ability to be creative with work and must march to corporate rules written by idiots, or they get wiped out in the acquisition.

View Quote View All Quotes

View All Quotes

Quote History

Quoted:

Quoted:
I know a guy whose company was bought out by a mega-corporation.

It's usually pretty nice for the founders. You get enough money to not care about money for the rest of your life, and can continue to work out of your passion for the work till you're sick of it.

Founder, yes. Workers, not so much. Either they lose their ability to be creative with work and must march to corporate rules written by idiots, or they get wiped out in the acquisition.

Sad part is that is when the real creativity generally ends.
Especially in the technology field as many of the hands on type folks tend to not be the types that play well in a rigid corporate environment.