谷歌收购机器人制造商波士顿动力

新华网12月16日电 据科技博客Gizmodo文章，谷歌公司14日证实已收购机器人制造商波士顿动力(Boston Dynamics)，后者以四足兽形态的机器人产品著称。

在接受《纽约时报》采访时，谷歌方面拒绝透露这项收购的交易价格。鉴于波士顿动力公司与美国军方合作紧密，谷歌公司表示，自己不准备成为军事承包商，而已付款的军事合同将会如约完成。

谷歌正在高调进军机器人领域：波士顿动力是谷歌工期在过去6个月内收购的第八家机器人公司，而谷歌的机器人计划尚不明朗。

谷歌公司的机器人团队由安迪·鲁宾领导，他前不久刚刚从安卓系统团队辞职。上周在接受《纽约时报》采访时，鲁宾表现的相当守口如瓶。很多人猜测，谷歌公司希望创建自动化的制造或零售系统，类似于亚马逊公司的产品挑选机器人。

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.