Google Completes Acquisition Of Boston Dynamics

Boston Dynamics robot  WildCat.
Boston Dynamics’ four-legged robot named WildCat can gallop at high speeds.

Google Adds to Its Menagerie of Robots (The New York Times, Dec 14, 2013):

SAN FRANCISCO — BigDog, Cheetah, WildCat and Atlas have joined Google’s growing robot menagerie.

A robot named BigDog, which can walk over rough terrain, can also stay upright in response to a well-placed human kick.

Google confirmed on Friday that it had completed the acquisition of Boston Dynamics, an engineering company that has designed mobile research robots for the Pentagon. The company, based in Waltham, Mass., has gained an international reputation for machines that walk with an uncanny sense of balance and even — cheetahlike — run faster than the fastest humans.

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