4 ms·

>It is the eighth robotics company that Google has acquired in the last half-year. This is a crazy aggressive acquisition strategy. Does anybody have a list of

by kken 13y ago

>It is the eighth robotics company that Google has acquired in the last half-year. This is a crazy aggressive acquisition strategy. Does anybody have a list of the other companies? Where could google be heading to? They already have self-driving cars and a big stake in Uber. Somehow I am missing a connection to a manufacturer that already has an established stake in the vehicle/robotics industry. All they have so far are design companies.

jjoonathan 13y ago
Maybe they're "headed to" robotic construction? It would certainly leverage Google's strengths as a machine learning / AI company. If they can buy up a bunch of robotics companies and get there first, they might just capture a market that makes search look tiny.
- XorNot 13y ago
  Well anyone who can reliably get around-the-house helper robots into people's homes is going to be the next-next megacorp.
btown 13y ago
If Google is the only one with robotics technology, then it can name its terms when dealing with vehicle manufacturers, because they will need to be able to license it to remain cutting-edge. By not acquiring/having a formal stake in the automobile industry, it limits its risk (since we all know how risky that business is now!).
vitobcn 13y ago
From [1]: Google bought seven robotics companies in the past six months - Schaft, Industrial Perception, Meka, Redwood Robotics, Bot & Dolly, Autofuss and Holomni - [1] : http://allthingsd.com/20131203/google-acquired-seven-robotics-companies-for-andy-rubin/ http://allthingsd.com/20131203/google-acquired-seven-robotic...
- mturmon 13y ago
  Thanks. Isn't this list of acquisitions tilted towards mechanics and hardware for mobility? And less towards perception, intelligence, and planning? Do they think they have the latter areas covered in-house?
- kken 13y ago
  http://schaft-inc.jp/ http://schaft-inc.jp/ http://www.industrial-perception.com/ http://www.industrial-perception.com/ http://mekabot.com/ http://mekabot.com/ http://redwoodrobotics.com/ http://redwoodrobotics.com/ http://www.botndolly.com/ http://www.botndolly.com/ http://www.autofuss.com/ http://www.autofuss.com/ http://www.holomni.com/ http://www.holomni.com/ The common themes I see are: - Movie industry - Anthropomorphic robots This is not aimed at utility applications, but seems to head into the human-machine-interface (HMI) direction.
  - kineticfocus 13y ago
    With all these companies listed I'm surprised Willow Garage didn't join up with Google; given that the founder was a googler.
    - krschultz 13y ago
      In effect, they did. Willow Garage was restructured into Redwood Robotics. Google purchased Redwood Robotics. There are certainly lots of messy details, but the key projects (ROS & OpenCV) and the engineers from Willow Garage are now at Google.
  - dave809 13y ago
    I remember watching this awesome video from Bot & Dolly a few weeks ago, "Box" http://vimeo.com/75260457 http://vimeo.com/75260457
BadassFractal 13y ago
Are robots possibly the "Internet of the future" in terms of the kind of impact they will have on humanity is a short timespan?
- adventured 13y ago
  No, robots are here and now, rather than a future technology. The industry is booming, and the technology is producing spectacular productivity gains (eg: iRobot and KIVA to name two). The impact however will be as large as the Internet has been. Robots will impact the lives of every person on earth in the next three decades; from resource gathering, to manufacturing, to health care, to war, to self defense, to surveillance, to service jobs. There is no field that will remain untouched by robotics.
kken 13y ago
Clearly, there is only one implicication: Google is Skynet and became sentient a while ago. Now it is looking into building a physical manifestation of itself.
- aragot 13y ago
  Clear. What would you if you had invented self-conscious AI? You need data to grow it. Create a search bot and start harvesting as much data as you physicallyc can eat, to make sure you're beyond any competitor by the time they catch up. Send hard drives to researchers to kindly host their data. Harvesting data on the web is cute, but most of the knowledge is given in classrooms and workshops. Start sponsoring online classes, or invent Google Glass, so you can attend MBA and physics classes. Fortunately no-one has invented AI yet.
  - BrokenPipe 13y ago
    > Fortunately no-one has invented AI yet. Not that we know but if someone did create it, is it reasonable to think that an AI would soon learn that humans should not know about its existence and kill the creator by hiring bitcoin paid killers ? Obviously the bitcoin will be acquired via hacks on wallet, mining on hacked boxes, etc
fricken4 13y ago
http://spectrum.ieee.org/automaton/robotics/industrial-robots/google-acquisition-seven-robotics-companies http://spectrum.ieee.org/automaton/robotics/industrial-robot... This is interesting because of the time. The Darpa grand robotics challenge is 1 week: http://www.defense.gov/news/newsarticle.aspx?id=121335 http://www.defense.gov/news/newsarticle.aspx?id=121335 Now 2 of Google's recent acquisitions are A-list competitors. I wonder how much they paid for BD, and how much of a priority it was for Google to make the deal before the challenge and not after.
lhm 13y ago
> Where could google be heading to? It's probably worth noting that both Larry Page and Eric Schmidt have invested in Planetary Resources. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planetary_Resources http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planetary_Resources [2] http://www.planetaryresources.com/team/ http://www.planetaryresources.com/team/
eli_gottlieb 13y ago
>Where could google be heading to? They are trying to make hard scifi novels a reality.

by kken 13y ago

jjoonathan 13y ago

Maybe they're "headed to" robotic construction? It would certainly leverage Google's strengths as a machine learning / AI company. If they can buy up a bunch of robotics companies and get there first, they might just capture a market that makes search look tiny.

XorNot 13y ago
Well anyone who can reliably get around-the-house helper robots into people's homes is going to be the next-next megacorp.

btown 13y ago

If Google is the only one with robotics technology, then it can name its terms when dealing with vehicle manufacturers, because they will need to be able to license it to remain cutting-edge. By not acquiring/having a formal stake in the automobile industry, it limits its risk (since we all know how risky that business is now!).

vitobcn 13y ago

From [1]: Google bought seven robotics companies in the past six months - Schaft, Industrial Perception, Meka, Redwood Robotics, Bot & Dolly, Autofuss and Holomni - [1] : http://allthingsd.com/20131203/google-acquired-seven-robotics-companies-for-andy-rubin/ http://allthingsd.com/20131203/google-acquired-seven-robotic...

mturmon 13y ago
Thanks. Isn't this list of acquisitions tilted towards mechanics and hardware for mobility? And less towards perception, intelligence, and planning? Do they think they have the latter areas covered in-house?
kken 13y ago
http://schaft-inc.jp/ http://schaft-inc.jp/ http://www.industrial-perception.com/ http://www.industrial-perception.com/ http://mekabot.com/ http://mekabot.com/ http://redwoodrobotics.com/ http://redwoodrobotics.com/ http://www.botndolly.com/ http://www.botndolly.com/ http://www.autofuss.com/ http://www.autofuss.com/ http://www.holomni.com/ http://www.holomni.com/ The common themes I see are: - Movie industry - Anthropomorphic robots This is not aimed at utility applications, but seems to head into the human-machine-interface (HMI) direction.
- kineticfocus 13y ago
  With all these companies listed I'm surprised Willow Garage didn't join up with Google; given that the founder was a googler.
  - krschultz 13y ago
    In effect, they did. Willow Garage was restructured into Redwood Robotics. Google purchased Redwood Robotics. There are certainly lots of messy details, but the key projects (ROS & OpenCV) and the engineers from Willow Garage are now at Google.
- dave809 13y ago
  I remember watching this awesome video from Bot & Dolly a few weeks ago, "Box" http://vimeo.com/75260457 http://vimeo.com/75260457

BadassFractal 13y ago

Are robots possibly the "Internet of the future" in terms of the kind of impact they will have on humanity is a short timespan?

adventured 13y ago
No, robots are here and now, rather than a future technology. The industry is booming, and the technology is producing spectacular productivity gains (eg: iRobot and KIVA to name two). The impact however will be as large as the Internet has been. Robots will impact the lives of every person on earth in the next three decades; from resource gathering, to manufacturing, to health care, to war, to self defense, to surveillance, to service jobs. There is no field that will remain untouched by robotics.

kken 13y ago

Clearly, there is only one implicication: Google is Skynet and became sentient a while ago. Now it is looking into building a physical manifestation of itself.

aragot 13y ago
Clear. What would you if you had invented self-conscious AI? You need data to grow it. Create a search bot and start harvesting as much data as you physicallyc can eat, to make sure you're beyond any competitor by the time they catch up. Send hard drives to researchers to kindly host their data. Harvesting data on the web is cute, but most of the knowledge is given in classrooms and workshops. Start sponsoring online classes, or invent Google Glass, so you can attend MBA and physics classes. Fortunately no-one has invented AI yet.
- BrokenPipe 13y ago
  > Fortunately no-one has invented AI yet. Not that we know but if someone did create it, is it reasonable to think that an AI would soon learn that humans should not know about its existence and kill the creator by hiring bitcoin paid killers ? Obviously the bitcoin will be acquired via hacks on wallet, mining on hacked boxes, etc

fricken4 13y ago

http://spectrum.ieee.org/automaton/robotics/industrial-robots/google-acquisition-seven-robotics-companies http://spectrum.ieee.org/automaton/robotics/industrial-robot... This is interesting because of the time. The Darpa grand robotics challenge is 1 week: http://www.defense.gov/news/newsarticle.aspx?id=121335 http://www.defense.gov/news/newsarticle.aspx?id=121335 Now 2 of Google's recent acquisitions are A-list competitors. I wonder how much they paid for BD, and how much of a priority it was for Google to make the deal before the challenge and not after.

lhm 13y ago

> Where could google be heading to? It's probably worth noting that both Larry Page and Eric Schmidt have invested in Planetary Resources. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planetary_Resources http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planetary_Resources [2] http://www.planetaryresources.com/team/ http://www.planetaryresources.com/team/

eli_gottlieb 13y ago

>Where could google be heading to? They are trying to make hard scifi novels a reality.