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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
(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.
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(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.
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(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.