Dog Robots Now Under the Care of Google X

Dog robots now under the care of Google X

By Dan Isacsson December 20, 2015

In the midst of Alphabet’s reorganization, the semi-secret Google X’s lab has taken on the responsibility of handling both robotics and satellite drone-based Internet. According to a representative from Google X who spoke to Re/Code, the decision was made to direct both projects towards more tangible problems.

Alphabet acquired Titan Aerospace last year. That resulted in Project Titan, the satellite drone unit that now sits under the Access and Energy subsidiary of Alphabet. This division will instead be joining the conglomerate’s other drone project, Project Wing, which is focused on finding new ways to do drone delivery. The Google X spokesperson further stated that Wing will expand to include communications by incorporating the Internet access research that Titan is working on.

Then there was the robotics division. You might have come across a few sprinting humanoid robots, or dogs for that matter, from a company called Boston Dynamics. The company was bought by Google in 2013, and has been striving to couple artificial human movements with foundational robotics software. The resulting unit was called Replicant, a hommage to the humanoid AIs in the movie Blade Runner.

Since Google became a subsidiary to Alphabet almost five months ago, it’s undergone changes. It can let certain company divisions work separately to a larger degree than before, but there’s also room for restructuring the conglomerate by combining them more freely. It’s been almost five months since the company announced the transformation into our beloved collection of roman letters, but it was in October that all of Google’s class A and class B shares were converted into Alphabet shares. That is to say, according to the stock market, the transformation wasn’t complete until two months ago. Considering how efficiently things have been moving along, further changes to the company could be lurking just ahead.

While there aren’t any details on exactly what the new operations will lead to, perhaps “tangible” means that we’ll begin to see more practical examples of their tech, rather than the experimental footage we’ve seen thus far.

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