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Google Puts Money on Robots, Using the Man Behind Android
- IBM 13y agoNot keen on letting Amazon hog the PR spotlight, Google lets Andy Rubin out of the doghouse because the X Labs are all tapped out.
- danielharan 13y agoWhy is he in the dog house?
- Zigurd 13y agoPresumably: He bought Motorola. Meh patents, troubled OEM competitive with key Google partners. An expensive mistake even for Google.
- fidotron 13y agoNo, it's all Google internal politics. In my experience big SV companies have classes of staff on payroll merely to prevent them working somewhere else where they would represent a bigger threat to the core business. Google seems to have more than normal of this type of character.
- mturmon 13y ago"Better to have him inside the tent pissing out, than outside pissing in."
- Zigurd 13y agoRubin is brilliant, and was absolutely the right guy to kick the carriers' asses and conquer the handset OEM world. I suppose that's all the more reason to keep him "inside the tent." I just think of it as horses for courses.
- tesseractive 13y agoOr maybe this is what he went to X Labs to work on, and now they're moving forward with productizing it?
- DannyBee 13y agoCould you explain how giving a guy free run of the place and acquiring 7 companies on his say so counts as "being in the doghouse". Maybe i'm just not used to silicon valley doghouses; I know things are expensive out here.
- declan 13y agoExactly. This would be a dream job for a heck of a lot of HN regulars: running your own shop, with no significant money worries, and a decent chance of changing the world. If this is the "doghouse," I'd be happy to be there too.
- enneff 13y agoJust to state the obvious: Andy is not (and was not) in the doghouse. He had a massively successful run as the leader of Android and is now doing something else. I look forward to seeing what his team comes up with.
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- yRetsyM 13y agoIs it too early to reference Skynet and Terminator?
- chmike 13y agoWhy the down vote ? This is a pertinent question. It's a problem we will face soon or later. Internet has also it's problem. The ostrich attitude or obscurantism about them is plain stupid. My answer to this question is that dynamite and machine have good use and bad use. There were also good reason to fear the bad use of them. But mankind manage to keep the balance largely in favor of the good use. I'll not prone obscurantism or the ostrich attitude regarding the risks of this new technologies. But we will have to manage that type of problem. It's easier when we have a little time left in front of us before things get out of control. I beleive that artificial intelligence reproducing the brain capabilities is just behind the corner. So we are in a race that I hope the good people and use will win.
- icebraining 13y agoI beleive that artificial intelligence reproducing the brain capabilities is just behind the corner. Why?
- chmike 13y agoAll the cogs of the brain are well known and documented since years and their interoperation as well. But we still don't know how it all work together and what function is implemented by it.(I mean publicly. Some people may already know and keep it secret) This is like DNA. All the puzzle pieces (molecules) were known but what was missing is how these pieces fit together. It was a aha moment that made the difference between before and after. For the explanation on how the cortical neural network works the aha moment is the only missing step. All the puzzle pieces are known (of coures in the hypothesis that only bioelectrical mechanisms are in play).
- leokun 13y ago> All the cogs of the brain are well known and documented since years and their interoperation as well. But we still don't know how it all work together and what function is implemented by it.(I mean publicly. Some people may already know and keep it secret) I don't think there's a single correct thing about anything in this sentence, it's also a little bit conspiracy crazed.
- conjecTech 13y agoWhat kind of background is Google looking for when recruiting people to work on teams like these?
- ijs 13y agoBot & Dolly is hiring: http://www.botndolly.com/jobs http://www.botndolly.com/jobs
- tlb 13y agoThey're a good company to work for. Less nerdy than 99% of robotics companies.
- aray 13y agoI'm not sure how 'less nerdy' would be a plus for a robotics company, but good to have a positive review of the place nonetheless. Do you work there?
- nostrademons 13y ago(tlb is Trevor Blackwell, a partner at YCombinator and founder/CEO of Anybots. It's safe to guess that he knows the field.) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trevor_Blackwell http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trevor_Blackwell
- wpietri 13y agoJust guessing, but for me it's about the audience. Software in the 70s and 80s was very nerdy. With the rise of the web, it got less so, driven by the need to reach consumers and the influence of print design. In the last decade, a lot of tech is downright chic, and succeeds because of that. Look at the iPod and the iPhone, for example. I think robotics is coming up on a similar transition. For years it was 99% research projects and industrial uses: pure nerdery. But Bot & Dolly is selling to Hollywood, and is very slickly marketed. Aesthetics are starting to really matter.
- hunterwalk 13y agothey seem to have used a file photo from 2007 NYT story that has a toy robot. Hmm, bit tricky - to average person I think the photo suggests THIS is an example of the robots he's working on, no? http://hunterwalk.com/2013/12/03/andy-rubin-poses-with-same-drone-2007-2013-what-does-it-all-mean/ http://hunterwalk.com/2013/12/03/andy-rubin-poses-with-same-...
- tomkarlo 13y agoMore likely he just was hard to schedule for a photo shoot, so they used a file photo and this was better than a headshot of him speaking at some conference. Unless there were new robots to show from Google, it wouldn't add much to take a new photo.
- sown 13y agoI feel like I'm greatly missing out on new stuff like this. I'm trying to get a turtle bot together and build a sort of lab component of Prof Thrun's robot car class. But I wonder what else I could be doing. Anyone have pointers?
- chmike 13y agoIt depends what you want to do. Do you simply want to get some experience in turtles or try to go for the rabbit? I think we are in front of a major disruption. So in order to get a good starting point in that domain I would look for very simple and cheap idea that can make you earn money. With that money you can then explore bolder ideas etc. So instead of searching for a cool idea, I would look for something usefull with value for people. I would look where there is still room for improvement. Robotics is the next big thing because it will apply in so many fields. Not only robots, artificial intelligence as well. Better be the one who builds and conceive them than the one whose job has been taken oveer by them.
- beambot 13y agoIt depends on your goals... if you want to get your feet wet with robotics development, a TurtleBot is a good place to start. You can learn the basics of ROS (Robot Operating System), play around with sensing (Kinect) for obstacle avoidance, mapping, and navigation. You can even build some pretty fun applications with a TurtleBot (eg. classic beer delivery). For an extra couple $hundred, you can buy a decent hobby robot arm (eg. Robotis servos) and doing basic kinematics and manipulation. For the cost of a high-end computer, you can go pretty far these days! EDIT: Also, I highly recommend reading Probabilistic Robotics. Not strictly necessary for many applications, but required reading if you want to understand most academic robotics topics.
- creativestuff 13y agoWhat are some good sites/blogs to follow to get more news like this?
- beambot 13y agoIEEE Automaton Blog: http://spectrum.ieee.org/blog/automaton http://spectrum.ieee.org/blog/automaton RoboHub: http://robohub.org/ http://robohub.org/ Hizook: http://www.hizook.com/ http://www.hizook.com/ Everything Robotic: http://www.everything-robotic.com/ http://www.everything-robotic.com/ These are the main robot-centric ones (disclaimer: I run Hizook). There are lots of other websites that are mixed (robotics and other tech).
- username42 13y agoThe long term plan of Google is "the skynet of terminator movie". Larry Page has always said it: http://blog.beacontechnologies.com/google-ai-artificial-intelligence-is-the-future-of-google-search/ http://blog.beacontechnologies.com/google-ai-artificial-inte... , http://www.artificialbrains.com/google http://www.artificialbrains.com/google .
- shdon 13y agoI wonder how long it will be before the sex industry catches on. Surely realistic and anatomically correct androids are preferable to blow-up dolls are what have you... even Star Trek mentioned the issue. It might seem flippant, but I genuinely think that is a potentially huge market (though probably not Google's cup of tea). After all, why create a robot that is shaped like a human? The human form is remarkably versatile, but there's a reason that industrial robots don't look even remotely human. Each has a specialised function and corresponding form that makes them far more efficient than a human being. The best reason for having a robot that emulates human form and behaviour would be for interacting with other humans. There are fewer more basic human needs than that for sex, as much as we'd all like to be prudes and deny it. Though the uncanny valley may be an issue, human nature makes it unavoidable that this will happen eventually.
- eitally 13y agoThis was the key theme of only the second episode of the new cop drama Almost Human. I agree with you. However, I think there is a more immediate market in industry, and one that doesn't require nearly as complex robots.
- shdon 13y agoAlmost Human has been on my list of things to watch, I suppose I should move it up a notch. The industrial market will undoubtedly be served first by this (and Google's probably carefully avoiding any hint of what I suggested -- heck, I already got downvoted for merely mentioning the possibility), but I'm pretty sure it will happen. The ethical implications are interesting to say the least. Complexity is interesting, too. Historically, it's always been better to have specialised programming for the domain of use. Industrial/manufacturing purposes would indeed be a nicely delineated area. Once you make androids that have to deal with humans on a human level, pretty much all limits are gone as the entire gamut of human behaviour needs to be dealt with and a portion of it simulated. I suppose a sexbot of some kind is possible without being too complicated, just don't expect it to cook you dinner afterwards. Perhaps too much complexity would actually be detrimental in this case, as no sane person has yet worried about whether their blowup-doll likes them or has a good time. Moral and ethical issues will arise. But that hasn't stopped humanity in the past.
- lifeisstillgood 13y agoFor me this article tells me I am growing up. Previously I would have thought "gosh Google is getting into robots, well that sews up the market everyone will buy from them." today I think - "Wow, Google is path blazing, there is going to be so many opportunities - let's dig out ROS and find a local company with a needs"
- fidotron 13y agoAnd you'll know you're grown up when you can spot a reactionary PR fluff piece instead of anything with actual content in it! The Amazon announcement had a concrete end goal and time commitments, and was met with cynicism, whereas this fuzzy approach allowing people to project what they want into what they're reading creates a sort of delusional optimism among many.
- nyrulez 13y agoThanks for being a cynic! I am sure all big discoveries are made using concrete deadlines. I guess the quest for exploratory research is dead.
- lifeisstillgood 13y agoI used to (and still do) run the opposite direction that the crowd is going. Its just that I am choosing my tribe - and my tribe is full of people who also run the opposite direction from the crowd. So I have to be careful to spot both the larger crowd, the crowd that is now my tribe and when people are dropping FUD scent markers over their desired territory. In short - robots still look like a hobby that will pay off the same way writing games for the ZX 80 or Atari will pay off.
- saosebastiao 13y agoComparing Robotics to Atari development is like comparing Computers to Atari development. It is the comparison of an idea and the application of an idea. You might be right about trendiness of robotics applications, but to throw the whole idea out with it is foolish.
- anoplus 13y agoThe only job robot can't do is politician.
- charlieflowers 13y agoNot so sure ... read some Isaac Asimov. (And yes, I'm generalizing from fictional evidence, but I'm only playing).
- saosebastiao 13y agoTo put some weight behind the quote from Andrew McAfee's quote (“The opportunity is massive,” said Andrew McAfee, a principal research scientist at the M.I.T. Center for Digital Business. “There are still people who walk around in factories and pick things up in distribution centers and work in the back rooms of grocery stores.”), just the external logistics of the Supply Chain of modern businesses accounts for around 7-9% of the GDP[1]. In developing countries, it is much higher (although I don't have a non-gated reference for other developing countries, the link in [1] shows China's cost at 18%). Interestingly, while inventory holding costs are included in that estimate, internal fulfillment costs (think Pick and Pack, Rail Shunt Yards, Crossdocking, etc) is not included as that is typically considered an operations cost. Those costs vary wildly by industry, but I can imagine it tacks on another 20-30% on top of that. This would mean that the modern industrial supply chain costs the US around $1.5 trillion/yr. [1] http://www.kpmg.com.cn/en/virtual_library/Property_Infrastructure/LogisticsChina.pdf http://www.kpmg.com.cn/en/virtual_library/Property_Infrastru...
- munificent 13y agoIn case the automated cars weren't enough of a wake up call, this is a pretty clear indication that the millions (billions?) of people we currently employ to do low-skill manual labor will be out of a job before too long. If we don't come up with useful for things for them to fill their time with, it's going to be a hugely destabilizing force in society.
- dm2 13y agoWhat about a law that requires companies to train employees with a usable skill for X months before they can be replaced with a robot? Hopefully all of these innovations will not only replace humans with robots but will also create new industries and new jobs. Something that's more Utopian would be if there was no meaning of currency. I think it happened in Star Trek (never seen it but someone told me about the concept). If you have re-arrange the molecules of any object to create any other object, then why would everyone need to work? If you wanted MORE things then you could work, but to live day to day, would you have to pay for small items and food in the future or could you just "print" or create them from re-atomizing anything you already own?