谷歌收購機器人制造商波士頓動力

新華網12月16日電 據科技博客Gizmodo文章，谷歌公司14日證實已收購機器人制造商波士頓動力(Boston Dynamics)，后者以四足獸形態(tài)的機器人產品著稱。

在接受《紐約時報》采訪時，谷歌方面拒絕透露這項收購的交易價格。鑒于波士頓動力公司與美國軍方合作緊密，谷歌公司表示，自己不準備成為軍事承包商，而已付款的軍事合同將會如約完成。

谷歌正在高調進軍機器人領域：波士頓動力是谷歌工期在過去6個月內收購的第八家機器人公司，而谷歌的機器人計劃尚不明朗。

谷歌公司的機器人團隊由安迪·魯賓領導，他前不久剛剛從安卓系統(tǒng)團隊辭職。上周在接受《紐約時報》采訪時，魯賓表現的相當守口如瓶。很多人猜測，谷歌公司希望創(chuàng)建自動化的制造或零售系統(tǒng)，類似于亞馬遜公司的產品挑選機器人。

Google Just Bought Crazy Walking Robot Maker Boston Dynamics

Google confirmed yesterday that it has acquired Boston Dynamics, maker of creepy walking humanoids and creepy running animal bots.

Google declined to tell The New York Times how much it paid for the robot engineering company. While Boston Dynamics works closely with the Pentagon to develop battlefield-ready robots, Google says it does not plan on becoming a military contractor on its own. Existing Boston Dynamics military contracts will be honored.

Google is moving into the robotics realm in a big way: Boston Dynamics is the eighth robotics company the internet giant has acquired in the past six months. What Google plans to do with all this robot knowledge hasn't been made expressly known.

The robotics team is led by Andy Rubin, who recently stepped down as head of Android. In an interview with The New York Times last week, Rubin was tight-lipped about what the robotics team has in store for the "moonshot" project. There's plenty of speculation that Google wants to create an automated manufacturing or retail system, similar to Amazon's product picking robots.