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Hyundai buys Boston Dynamics for nearly $1B
- qeternity 6y ago> nearly Ouch.
- marban 6y agoI think it's time for whoownsbostondynamics.com
- virattara 6y agoThe domain is available.
- tunnuz 6y agoHyund.ai
- KraftKacke 6y ago"You and I". I say sexrobots.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- andrewon 6y agoA company too ahead of its time?
- jack_riminton 6y agoA neat reminder that most Mergers and Acquisitions are money losing and that robots on legs are a neat idea but mostly useless
- mewpmewp2 6y agoYou clearly haven't seen enough of Black Mirror.
- jack_riminton 6y agoYou’ve clearly seen too much
- mytailorisrich 6y agoLegs are an over-engineered solution if your only use-case is a nice, flat surface. Outdoors, or even indoors with random flights of stairs thrown in, they make sense as a robust and effective solution.
- jack_riminton 6y agoThat’s why I said mostly
- orzig 6y agoSo the question is whether “most“ of long term robotics applications are on a simple flat surface or not. I truly do not know, but presumably they have some ideas in mind
- jack_riminton 6y agoFalse dichotomy. There are plenty of solutions for going over horrendous terrain that don’t involve legs
- papaf 6y agoI know its easy to forget during a pandemic, but the world is mostly outdoors.
- jack_riminton 6y agoAnd most outdoors is navigable by means other than legs
- nindalf 6y agoI honestly think I've forgotten this to some extent. I went out yesterday after a long while and was shocked by how cold it was for January. I just hope we're not all agoraphobic at the end of this.
- faeyanpiraat 6y ago
- KraftKacke 6y agoIn a world made around human bodies, hardly.
- jack_riminton 6y agoIt’s a good point I should’ve said that most of the current solutions are useless There will probably be good ones in the future
- jack_riminton 6y agoEdit to say: current solutions are mostly useless but as people have quite rightly pointed out there will eventually be some good ones
- 6a74 6y agoMakes sense. South Korea, where Hyundai is based, has by far the most robots per manufacturing employee [1]. They will make good use of the technology. [1] https://specials-images.forbesimg.com/imageserve/5f719cf9f44706e499144241/960x0.jpg?fit=scale https://specials-images.forbesimg.com/imageserve/5f719cf9f44...
- stefan_ 6y agoFeels like we said this about previous buyers. All I'm seeing is another sucker to keep the money rolling for more of these sweet viral robot demos that never seem to materialize into much of anything.
- orzig 6y agoKeep in mind that “previous buyers” is a very small sample size, and there are a huge number of contributing variables. It is certainly not guaranteed to work out, but given the value of really nailing a leap in the space, the price does not seem like an unreasonable gamble
- JshWright 6y agoAtlas can definitely nail a leap at this point...
- tooltalk 6y agoThe two previous buyers, Google and Softbank, didn't have much presence in robotics, unlike Hyundai. Hyundai recently spun off the automation business to a separate company, Hyundai Robotics, early last year.
- LeifCarrotson 6y agoTrue, but this is Hydundai Motor Group, not Hyundai Robotics. The two are separate. IMO, this is more about Hyundai's autonomous vehicle efforts. A BD robot is almost completely different than an industrial automation robot, the former attempts to use 3D mapping to dynamically generate an unpredictable path around obstacles between two points, while the latter is designed to always follow exactly the same kinematics between hard-coded points. A car with a steering wheel and forward/reverse electric motors is a lot more comparable to a Boston Dynamics robot than a 6-axis industrial arm is.
- diveanon 6y agoIt blows my mind that a chat client is worth over 26 times what Boston Dynamics is.
- ZephyrBlu 6y agoWell to be fair BD's _first product_ was only released what, a year ago? If they continue chugging along I can see them generating many, many more billions of dollars of value.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- api 6y agoA casino is more profitable than a hospital.
- simonh 6y agoAs a confirmed capitalist and free market believer, I have to say you've got me. There's not much I can say about that.
- IgorPartola 6y agoAs it should be. Hospitals being businesses is weird.
- orzig 6y agoTo extend this, a casino that has built a brand has a higher profit margin than a hospital. If I had $10 million to make something new, I might well build a hospital. I don’t claim deep knowledge of either industry, but I suspect that survivorship bias colors the lucrative casino examples we are thinking of. In contrast, a few hours with Google maps could probably turn up a reasonably profitable site for a new hospital, just based on ballpark supply and demand
- diveanon 6y ago
- AndrewLiptak 6y agoFYI, this is from December 11th.
- qzw 6y agoDarn, I thought it was that dance video that sealed the deal.
- runawaybottle 6y agoIf they can mass produce that dog that can carry groceries up stairs, I’d get one. Overall, I’d say it’s a play to make them more attractive to Apple as a tech company.
- nickserv 6y agoThere was a robot mule a few years back.
- echelon 6y agoI realize Korea is an ally, but this seems like tech we wouldn't want to lose the domestic capability to produce. Or tech we wouldn't want to cede the lead on. Why would Darpa pour so much money in for this outcome?
- flycaliguy 6y agoEven DARPA’s hindsight isn’t 20/20.
- TameAntelope 6y agoI wonder if we overestimate the "value" of replacing soldiers with machines...
- dmingod666 6y agoNumber one american export is USD. They don't seem to be interested in doing much beyond that..
- echelon 6y agoThat won't last long. Everyone else wants that role gone. Crypto, RMB, ...
- brabel 6y agoWasn't the previous owner Japanese anyway (SoftBank)?
- hehehaha 6y agoConsidering that American big tech has now conquered the world, they (the US govt) probably don’t want to appear nationalistic.
- ojnabieoot 6y agoBecause DARPA invests in high-risk research! They pour lots of money into lots of failures. It’s the nature of research. DARPA gave up on Boston Dynamics in 2015 - BigDog and it’s like were just too noisy and finicky for use in a combat situation. I believe all the BD robots they purchased are in storage. And it’s not like Boston Dynamics was ever an extension of DARPA. The DARPA collaboration (along with the rise of YouTube!) made Boston Dynamics famous around 2007-2008, but the company has been around since the 90s and always had other projects and clients. In general, robotics technology does not belong to the US, and as Boston Dynamics’s technology has applications in medicine, manufacturing, and humanitarian aid, this nativist greed is particularly inappropriate.
- superted 6y agoThis alongside the recent Apple car rumours makes Huyndai quite forward-leaning.
- domano 6y agoI wonder if there is any connection - is there some use apple cars could get out of boston dynamics technology?
- gregoriol 6y agoMost likely not: those japanese companies make a ton a different products in a ton a various domains, contrary to most american/european companies, so they can do cars and robots and ships and pens and whatever else without many links. Also it's most likely that Apple will use Hyundai as they did use Intel for some time, until they make their own.
- prennert 6y agoI wonder how this relates to Hyundai's partnership with Apple that was just announced and caused a massive rally of their stock price.
- randomsearch 6y agoSurely leverage via stock (Edit: this story was Dec 11th, so clearly not.)
- scyzoryk_xyz 6y agoSame here... Apple Horse > Apple Car
- major505 6y agoLooks like the Koreans are gonna be the first to get a combate robot.
- amrrs 6y agoThis article was posted almost a month back ~ Dec 11th 2020. I wonder why no media captured this!
- sradman 6y agoHN thread Hyundai to acquire Boston Dynamics [1] from one month ago. The article [2] from The RobotReport states: > In early November, Bloomberg first reported that Hyundai was in talks to acquire Boston Dynamics from Tokyo-based SoftBank Group. The Japanese conglomerate is selling off non-core business assets after it was hit hard by a series of soured bets, including WeWork and Uber. In September 2020, Softbank sold Arm to NVIDIA for $40 billion. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25363981 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25363981 [2] https://www.therobotreport.com/hyundai-acquires-boston-dynamics-for-921m/ https://www.therobotreport.com/hyundai-acquires-boston-dynam...
- hehehaha 6y agoIs Hyundai trying to make a major move here? This now makes a lot of sense coupled with their pending partnership with Apple.
- jansan 6y agoHow exactly? You mean something like a self riding horse?
- ArtWomb 6y agoCongrats! Saw a demo of the "Cheetah" in Cambridge about a year and a half ago and it drew a massive, captivated audience. Even if they simply seek to dominate the live robotics sports & entertainment market with their dancing androids the acquisition would be worth many multiples. But I suspect their vision goes beyond Hollywood, or even post-Covid automat style restaurants ;) Interesting that it was Hyundai and not a domestic partner. Still has to pass trade scrutiny. But the subtext here is that American Manufacturing is slow to adopt robotics vs Asia. This could be a wake up call to a sea change in the culture Manufacturing in America - A View From The Field https://workofthefuture.mit.edu/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/2020-Research-Brief-Berger.pdf https://workofthefuture.mit.edu/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/2...
- keiferski 6y agoConsidering their current market cap, it surprises me that Tesla or Space X didn’t pick up BD. Seems like a natural acquisition for a rather low price.
- itsoktocry 6y ago>Considering their current market cap, it surprises me that Tesla or Space X didn’t pick up BD. Perhaps companies are leery of accepting Tesla's inflated shares as currency in any deal. SpaceX is still continuously raising cash, so I doubt they have a billion dollars to spend willy-nilly.
- kaibee 6y agoIf they were, they could still sell them off immediately.
- davidivadavid 6y agoI doubt they would allow that.
- janitor_monkey 6y agoUsually, there are lock up periods for those, plus the uncertainty between when the operation starts being discussed, an agreement is made and shareholders approve. What will Tesla be worth in a year?
- olau 6y agoCan you explain why? Neither needs dancing robots, and both seem capable of building things themselves if they need it?
- keiferski 6y agoRobotics seem like a natural extension of space travel or transportation to me. Or maybe I just associate crazy high-tech stuff with Musk.
- hmry 6y agoCan't wait for them to attach one of those Samsung autonomous sentry guns to the back of Spot and start patrolling the DMZ with it.
- dogma1138 6y agoThey have their own defense subsidiaries such as WIA. http://en.hyundai-wia.com/business/defense_business.asp http://en.hyundai-wia.com/business/defense_business.asp
- hmry 6y agoThank you for that info. I was mostly joking, but this seems to confirm it in my mind. The future will be... interesting, to say the least.