Hasta La Gadget!

Google announced that they’ve acquired Boston Dynamics, creators of quad- and bi-pedal robots like Big Dog and PETMAN. This is Google’s eighth robotics acquisition.

The company did not disclose the details of the sale.

The announcement appeared in the New York Times where Boston Dynamics CEO Marc Raibert said they would honor their DARPA military contracts although Google will not officially be a military contractor.

The company, founded in 1992, has been working on standalone, gas-powered robots for the past decade. The robots are self-righting and very resilient. Robots like Big Dog can throw cinder blocks, handle rocky terrain, and run at 16 mph.

The man behind the acquisition, Andy Rubin, stepped down as head of Googe’s Android business in march after turning a little-known mobile OS into a juggernaut. “His last big bet, Android, started off as a crazy idea that ended up putting a supercomputer in hundreds of millions of pockets,” wrote Larry Page on his Google+ page. “It is still very early days for this, but I can’t wait to see the progress.”

ATLAS, Boston Dynamic’s great robotic hope and the obvious star of DARPA’s Robotics Challenge, is one of the most advanced humanoid robots ever created. It’s capable of surprisingly human like movements and motions, and could one day replace soldiers in the battlefield the same way drones have replaced pilots in the skies.

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As we creep closer to the Robotics Challenge officially getting under way, Boston Dynamics gives us another glimpse of its DARPA-funded ATLAS robot being tested in the lab. This time we get to see the unsettling peek at our future carefully tip-toeing its away across a rock-strewn simulated debris field, with surprising ease and balance.

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Tiptoeing on tulips – that is exactly what the folks over at Boston Dynamics are supposed to do with their LS3 mule robot. LS3 stands for Legged Squad Support System, where we have seen in the past just how it managed to make its way across some pretty rough terrain on all fours, without even falling down when it was kicked. Not only that, it boasted the strength to haul around 400 pounds of supplies over 20 miles at a time on a single tank of fuel. While the LS3 is capable of lasting throughout 24 hours on a mission, the existing model is way too noisy for battlefield operations, with the main culprit being the gas-powered hydraulic pump.

DARPA hopes that an injection of $10 million will be able to ensure that the LS3’s head area, where most of its sensitive electronics are placed, will be bulletproof, just like most of the rest of its body. Apart from that, DARPA also wants the LS3 to be a whole lot more stealthy than it already is at this point in time. Will the folks at Boston Dynamics be able to pull it off with the new round of funding? $10 million is a drop in the bucket especially when you consider it against the amount spent for the F-35′s program so far.

Boston Dynamics LS3 To Gain Bulletproof Capability original content from Ubergizmo.

As impressed by we all were by Petman, DARPA and Boston Dynamics’ remarkably agile and nimble humanoid, it’s about to get upstaged by the company’s latest and greatest robot creation: ATLAS. Designed to compete in DARPA’s upcoming Robotics Challenge, we actually already got a glimpse of ATLAS’ impressive skills back when it was just a prototype, but as it nears completion we’re now seeing just how damn impressive it really is.

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