Google plans to make robots

Post date: Dec 4, 2013 10:47:25 PM

Google has just taken over eight robotics companies and is hiring staff to develop products. But the New York Times reports that at this stage Google does not plan to sell the resulting product to consumers. Instead, the newspaper suggests, Google's robots could be paired with its self-driving car research to help automate the delivery of goods to people's doors. It notes the company has recently begun a same-day grocery delivery service called Google Shopping Express. That would pitch the initiative against Amazon's Prime Air Project, which envisages using drones to transport goods to its customers by air.

One UK-based expert welcomed the news. "This is a clear sign that days of personalised robotic technology entering the mainstream market is imminent," said Prof Sethu Vijayakumar, director of the Robotics Lab at the University of Edinburgh.

One of the eight robotics companies taken over by Google is Boston Dynamics which makes some of the most impressive robots on the planet including Big Dog, WildCat, Cheetah and Atlas. But the robots Boston Dynamics makes are essentially military robots so one wonders why Google, whose motto is 'Don't be evil', would be interested in military robots... See this article about the Google takeover of Boston Dynamics.