Over a year after signalling its intentions to dump the robotics demonstration company Boston Dynamics, Alphabet/Google has finally found a buyer: SoftBank. SoftBank acquired ARM Holdings for around $32 billion in 2016. Google also offloaded another robotics company, Schaft:
Google's ambitions for Boston Dynamics were never really clear. Before being acquired, the robotics company was mostly funded by DARPA—the US military's research division—with the express purpose of creating militarised robots. Within a year of being picked up, though, Google announced that it would no longer pursue any DARPA contracts, presumably to focus on possible commercial uses for the bots. No commercial robots ever emerged.
SoftBank, however, has had success with commercialising robots—specifically the small humanoid robot Pepper.
Also at The Verge, The Guardian, TNW, CNN, CNBC, and TechCrunch.
Previously: Pentagon Scientists Show Off Robot And Prosthetics
Google's Noisy "BigDog" Robot Fails to Impress U.S. Marine Corps
Google's Latest Boston Dynamics Robot Takes a Stand
Boston Dynamics Produces a Wheeled Terror as Google Watches Nervously
Related Stories
Agence France-Presse (AFP) reports on the US Defense Secretary being briefed on the latest from DARPA.
US Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel got a first-hand look at a life-size robot Tuesday, the latest experiment by the Pentagon's hi-tech researchers. The hulking Atlas robot (developed by Boston Dynamics) is designed not as a warrior but as a humanitarian machine that would rescue victims in the rubble of a natural disaster, officials said.
Scientists also showed Hagel the latest technology for prosthetics, including a mechanical hand that responds to brain impulses and a prosthetic arm controlled by foot movements.
Let's all give a big welcome to our new robotic and cyborg overlords.
Google bought robotics company Boston Dynamics a little over two years ago. Now, a potential customer for the hulking "BigDog" quadruped pack mule is balking due to noise concerns:
The US military's flirtation with robotic pack animals looks set to end: the Marine Corps has halted further testing of the BigDog contrivance from Google stablemate Boston Dynamics.
BigDog, aka the Legged Squad Support System, has been under development at a cost of $32m, with the goal of making a four-legged machine capable of carrying 400lb (181kg) of supplies. The final design did just that, but painted a target on the troops it was supporting.
"As Marines were using it, there was the challenge of seeing the potential possibility because of the limitations of the robot itself. They took it as it was: a loud robot that's going to give away their position," Kyle Olson, a spokesman for the Marine's Warfighting Lab, told Military.com.
BigDog's carrying power wasn't disputed, and the robot dealt well with clambering over rough terrain without a human controlling it during the 2014 Rim of the Pacific war games. But the power needed to do all this required a petrol engine, which was so loud that the enemy could hear soldiers approaching before they saw them.
Boston Dynamics did develop a smaller, electric-powered robotic dog called Spot. This was also tried out by the Marines at its massive Quantico base in Virginia, but Spot could only carry 40lb (18kg) of equipment and needed a human to guide it.
Two YouTube videos accompanying the article.
Related: Pentagon Scientists Show Off Robot And Prosthetics
Marines give Google's latest robot a tryout as "working dog"
Meet Google/Alphabet's latest robot, the next-generation of Atlas:
The 5-foot-9-inch robot, created by Alphabet's Boston Dynamics, is about 5 inches shorter than its predecessor and 120 pounds lighter [now at 180 pounds]. It's more agile and no longer are[sic] tethered to any wires or power pack. It's also eerily humanoid:
In addition to withstanding bumps and getting up after being pushed over, the bipedal robot can pick up 10-pound boxes and push open doors. That is perhaps the scariest part for those who have visions of Terminator-like androids hunting them down.
Additional coverage at Singularity Hub, TechCrunch, and Ars Technica .
Original Submission
Google's parent company, Alphabet, is putting the robotics firm Boston Dynamics up for sale. In addition to the lack of near-to-release products, company culture issues were also cited as reasons for the for-sale sign. The company was part of a 2013 buying spree in the robotics field led by Andy Rubin, who had previously headed the Android division. Rubin left Google in 2014. At the end of 2015, the US Marine Corp declined to order the "AlphaDog" engine-powered pack-carriers due to noise concerns. Amazon and Toyota are mentioned as possible buyers for the company.
The Daily Mail has pictures and video of Boston Dynamics' creations as well as a quote from Gill Pratt, of DARPA, regarding disaster areas like Fukushima.
'Sometimes in a disaster, it is too dangerous for people to go in,'
The robots developed by TEPCO and Toshiba used in Fukushima have stopped working after radiation damaged their wires.
Our ageless robo-partners are not yet on the horizon.
takyon: Also at TechCrunch.
ARM Holdings, one of the UK's biggest technology companies, is set to announce it is being bought by Japan's Softbank for £24bn ($32bn).
The board of ARM is expected to recommend shareholders accept the offer - close to a 50% premium on its closing market value of £16.8bn on Friday.
The Cambridge-based firm is arguably the most precious jewel in the crown of British technology. [...] The proposed takeover of ARM poses a dilemma for the new post-Brexit government. Along with high executive pay, Prime Minister Theresa May has put foreign takeovers on her radar of business dealings that may be bad for the national interest.
takyon: ARM's founder called the sale "a sad day for technology in Britain".
Boston Dynamics has produced a hybrid wheeled-legged robot called "Handle":
The company's new wheeled, upright robot is named Handle ("because it's supposed to handle objects") and looks like a cross between a Segway and the two-legged Atlas bot. Handle hasn't been officially unveiled, but was shown off by company founder Marc Raibert in a presentation to investors. Footage of the presentation was uploaded to YouTube by venture capitalist Steve Jurvetson.
Raibert describes Handle as an "experiment in combining wheels with legs, with a very dynamic system that is balancing itself all the time and has a lot of knowledge of how to throw its weight around." He adds that using wheels is more efficient than legs, although there's obviously a trade-off in terms of maneuvering over uneven ground. "This is the debut presentation of what I think will be a nightmare-inducing robot," says Raibert
Boston Dynamics has yet to become profitable, and the Alphabet/Google complex looks to distance itself from "terrifying" and "nightmare-inducing" robots that may ultimately end up being sold to military customers (as long as they forget past disappointments):
While the robot's extreme sports skills were impressive, it's unlikely that Raibert's "nightmare-inducing" comment will be well-received at Alphabet. The company has been looking for a buyer for Boston Dynamics for months, reportedly after its last robot launch video went viral, and amid what Alphabet perceived to be "some negative threads about it being terrifying." The company was apparently in talks with Toyota about a takeover, but that has not as of yet materialized. Boston Dynamics is reportedly struggling to make money, especially after the US Navy said it would not be purchasing its robots.
So this is what Ethanol-fueled has been up to. Also at TechCrunch.
Uber board strikes agreement to pave way for SoftBank investment
Uber Technologies Inc's warring board members have struck a peace deal that allows a multibillion-dollar investment by SoftBank Group Corp to proceed, and which would resolve a legal battle between former Chief Executive Travis Kalanick and a prominent shareholder.
Venture capital firm Benchmark, an early investor with a board seat in the ride-services company, and Kalanick have reached an agreement over terms of the SoftBank investment, which could be worth up to $10 billion, according to two people familiar with the matter.
The Uber board first agreed more than a month ago to bring in SoftBank as an investor and board member, but negotiations have been slowed by ongoing fighting between Benchmark and Kalanick. The agreement struck on Sunday removed the final obstacle to allowing SoftBank to proceed with an offer to buy to[sic] stock.
Also at TechCrunch.
Related: Softbank to Invest $50 Billion in the US
SoftBank's $80-100 Billion "Vision Fund" Takes Shape
SoftBank May Sell 25% of ARM to Vision Fund; Chairman Meets With Saudi King
SoftBank Acquires Boston Dynamics and Schaft From Google
Travis Kalanick Appoints Two New Uber Board Members in "Power Play"
Saudi Arabia Planning $500 Billion Megacity and Business Zone
SoftBank and Toyota team up to develop services powered by self-driving vehicles
SoftBank is getting into self-driving car services after the Japanese tech giant announced a joint-venture with Toyota in its native Japan.
SoftBank is invested in Uber and a range of other ride-hailing startups like Didi in China and Grab in Southeast Asia, but this initiative with Toyota is not related to those deals. Instead, it is designed to combine SoftBank's focus on internet-of-things technology and Toyota's connected vehicle services platform to enable new types of services that run on autonomous vehicle tech.
Called MONET — after 'mobility network' — the joint venture will essentially assign autonomous vehicles to various different "just in time" services. That just in time caveat essentially means more than on-demand. SoftBank suggests it'll mean that services are performed in transit. That could be food prepared as it is delivered, hospital shuttles that host medical examinations, or mobile offices, according to examples given by SoftBank.
Related:
Toyota Invests $1 Billion in AI and Robots, Will Open R&D Lab in Silicon Valley
A Company Called Nauto Has Partnered With Toyota, BMW to Log Driver Habits
SoftBank Acquires Boston Dynamics and Schaft From Google
Saudi Arabia Planning $500 Billion Megacity and Business Zone
SoftBank to Invest Billions in Uber
SoftBank Acquires 20% of Uber While Massively Devaluing It
Japan Teams up With Uber, Airbus and 19 Others on Flying Taxi Plan
Saudi Arabia Shelves Work on SoftBank's $200 Billion Solar Project
Hyundai takes control of Boston Dynamics in $1.1B deal
Hyundai is officially purchasing a controlling stake in robot maker Boston Dynamics from SoftBank in a deal that values the company at $1.1 billion, the company announced today. The deal has been in the works for a while, according to recent a report from Bloomberg, and marks a major step into consumer robotics for Hyundai. Hyundai is taking approximately an 80 percent stake in the company while its previous owner, Softbank, will retain around 20 percent through an affiliate.
Hyundai says its investment will help its development of service and logistics robots, but that over time it hopes to build more humanoid robots for jobs like "caregiving for patients at hospitals." Other areas of interest include autonomous driving and smart factories.
EF could not be reached for comment.
Previously: Google to Sell Robotics Group Boston Dynamics
Boston Dynamics Produces a Wheeled Terror as Google Watches Nervously
SoftBank Acquires Boston Dynamics and Schaft From Google
Boston Dynamics Will Now Sell Any US Business its Own Spot Robot for $74,500
Boston Dynamics' Dog-Like Robot Spotted in Chernobyl
Boston Dynamics' Spot Is Helping Chernobyl Move Towards Safe Decommissioning
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Ethanol-fueled on Sunday June 11 2017, @12:52AM (5 children)
False. They were determined to be obnoxiously loud, complicated, and unwieldy compared to less complicated solutions with the bomb squad-robot style configuration. The military took a look at it with interest just as they investigated EXP phenomena decades earlier, with predictable results -- they determined it was bullshit, and more specifically shit for shit's own sake. Now, our robots could be pretty useful as killing machines, but current politics and looming treaties unfortunately make that impossible.
I predict they will make similar determinations with railguns as well as anti-aircraft and airborne laser systems.
As far as the company itself, we had a feeling we would be in deep trouble once the military lost interest, and we thought our expertise would easily carry over to Google's other ventures such as Waymo and their distributed airborne mesh networks outfit, but we were wrong. We were one of Google's favorite acquisitions, darlings of innovation, but then things became uncomfortable -- We caught Sergei Brin and Eric Schmidt pilfering our supplies of gold-plated pins and they had even resorted to stealing their employees' lunches from the lunchroom. In retrospect, we know why the two demanded standard lunchtimes for all employees. After the lunches started going missing an employee who had went to use the restroom walked by the lunchroom and saw them both eating stolen employees' lunches and making remarks such as, "Goddamn, these F.O.B.s' food tastes like shit," choking over their unpleasant surprises of Oriental fermented fish and noodles, and yet still finishing the whole meals.
There are no more orders or demonstrations lined up for us, and days are quiet -- IP is pretty-much all that's left of the company and the new management hired by SoftBank are a bunch of weaselly duplicitous cocksuckers. They're giving out bad reviews all-around, with critiques like, "Learn English, motherfucker!"
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 11 2017, @12:55AM
<sarcasm>Hey, I for one one am happy that you decided to dedicate your life to this goal.</sarcasm>
(Score: 2) by takyon on Sunday June 11 2017, @01:55AM (2 children)
At least the lasers and railguns could actually destroy things, unlike the one-armed robot pack mules.
Railgun cost per shot could vary a lot [blogspot.com], but should beat the Advanced Gun System [arstechnica.com].
Laser cost per shot could be less than $1. [nationalinterest.org] And if it can destroy incoming missiles or drones, it could be worth a high price tag to be able to protect the ship from those threats.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Ethanol-fueled on Sunday June 11 2017, @02:34AM (1 child)
The Advanced Gun System is just hilarious. The railgun, like all these other pie-in-the-sky armament systems, just may perhaps work under ideal conditions, and in the case of the lasers those conditions are maintaining a stabilized gimbaled fix on something that can't be shot down with it unless the target is the size of a $200 Wal-Mart quadcopter within 50 meters of range.
I hate to scare y'all, but the best technology we have was already developed...except that now, like Bay-area property bought in the '80's, the military industrial complex's decade-old fruits are still the best and now can be sold at a 500% markup. And we're paying for it.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 11 2017, @04:10AM
Raytheon has already contacted Remington about a cheaper AGS projectile: the deer slug.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 11 2017, @09:34AM
What would be the legal situation if the senior management of a company developing killer robots were to meet their demise due to one of their creations? Misadventure, suicide or industrial accident?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 11 2017, @01:10AM (3 children)
With investors like Apple, Oracle and the Saudis, are you surprised they're cocksuckers?
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Sunday June 11 2017, @02:43AM (2 children)
The Good, the Bad and the Ugly? :P
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Sunday June 11 2017, @03:22AM (1 child)
No; the Worse, the Worst and the Worsterest-and-Ugly
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Sunday June 11 2017, @06:07AM
The suffocating, the liar and the oppressor ? ;)
(Score: 4, Interesting) by khallow on Sunday June 11 2017, @03:41AM (3 children)
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Sunday June 11 2017, @06:09AM (2 children)
As long as the dividends are good or share price goes up it should be okay as a investment?
(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday June 11 2017, @10:00AM (1 child)
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Sunday June 11 2017, @01:32PM
It's like China? you don't know what is going on until it's a fact.. too late?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 11 2017, @07:02AM (3 children)
Boston Dynamics should never have been acquired by anybody. If it has to be owned, the logical choices are:
General Dynamics
Lockheed Martin
Northrop Grumman
Raytheon
Boeing
GE
Caterpillar
BAE
iRobot
Buying the company, avoiding military contracts, directing them to do cute battery-powered things with wheels, and then selling them off to a non-US company... that just shows contempt for America.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Sunday June 11 2017, @10:51AM
Better than making robots with contempt for Americans.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Sunday June 11 2017, @01:43PM
SpaceX ?
(Score: 1) by Ethanol-fueled on Monday June 12 2017, @12:22AM
Exactly. Good defense contractors, despite their often-boneheaded mistakes, know they have to make money and have well-paid teams of industry experts thoroughly evaluate all potential acquisitions. In case you're wondering why such an awesome startup was never acquired by real defense contractors, you should ask yourself why bipedal Metal Gear-style robots haven't been implemented yet -- they're ridiculously complicated with more moving parts (which are points of failure) and can be tripped and tied up with strong-enough cable. Sure, they look really cool, but they're fresh-meat in combat situations.
Boston Dynamics developed those machines because they could, machines for their own sake. Definitely valuable from a research standpoint, ridiculous from an applications standpoint.