[Introduction]: Boston Dynamics has been concentrating on it for many years. After ten years of grinding a sword, the machine dog that will be flipped after the opening of the door will be born. It is said that the Boston Dynamics robot dog will be sold and will be popular after commercialization. selling?
The robotic start-up, Boston Dynamics, has been in existence for 26 years, but it's more like a well-funded robotic lab focused on developing a variety of animal robots, not commercial companies. After several twists and turns, the company began to change its strategy and is now seeking to launch animal robots for commercial sales.
It's unclear whether Boston Dynamics is making killing machines, home helpers, or whatever. In the past few years, this mysterious company has received funding from the US military. The experimental robots that broadcast on YouTube mimic the video of animal predators and make people around the world feel uneasy. In one of the videos, a life-size wildcat robot traversed the parking lot at speeds of more than 30 kilometers per hour. In another video, a small wheeled robot nicknamed "SandFlea" suddenly jumped onto the roof and then came down.
Photo: On Thursday, May 24, 2018, at the Robotics Summit in Boston, Boston Dynamics' small robot SpotMini is passing through the conference room.
Recently, Boston Dynamics' research focused on slender robots like dogs, which can climb stairs, hold positions in the tug-of-war with humans, and open doors for other robots to pass. These videos are reminiscent of fast, powerful, and sometimes even daunting future robots, and they raise several questions. How do these robots work? What does Boston Dynamics plan to do with them? Are these videos (some 30 million hits) fully demonstrating their capabilities?
Boston Dynamics is not interested in answering these questions in detail. For a few months, the company and its parent company, SoftBank, rejected countless requests for information about their work. When a reporter wanted to visit the company's headquarters in Waltham, a suburb of Boston, his request was rejected. But after the Associated Press interviewed 10 employees of Boston Dynamics, the company's 68-year-old founder and CEO, Marc Raibert, agreed to receive a brief interview at the robot conference in late May.
LeBitt has just demonstrated the latest robot, which will be the company's first commercial robot in its 26-year history, the dog-like, open-open SpotMini, which Boston Dynamics plans to sell to the company next year. The robot security of the camera. The company has not yet announced the price of this battery-powered robot, which weighs almost as the Labrador Retriever. Lebbert said the company plans to produce 1,000 SpotMinis per year.
Guessing the intent of Boston Dynamics - weapons or servants? - Click spikes are triggered each time a new video is released. SpotMini has crossed this split, and R. Albert said he does not rule out the possibility of applying it to the military in the future. But he has played down concerns that the company's robots may one day be used to kill people. He said: "We have considered this problem, but cars, airplanes, computers and lasers are also used in the military. There are many ways to use each technology you can think of. If there is something terrible, it is people. It is the most terrible, I think the robot itself is not terrible."
Boston Dynamics' previous military involvement included the development of a four-legged robotic raft that could transport supplies in the desert or in the mountains, but sounded more like a lawn mower, and the US Marine Corps allegedly thought it was too noisy. The bigger issue that Boston Dynamics hopes to overcome remains unclear, which could be a design issue. Interviews with eight former Boston Dynamics employees and former Albert's academic collaborators show that the company has long ignored business needs, not to mention external ethical or ethical concerns, and is committed to mimicking animal movements.
Former employees say that Boston Dynamics is more like a well-funded research lab than a business. Libert's vision has been extended for many years by signing military contracts, particularly from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). The federal contract database lists the defense funds that Boston Dynamics has received since 1994, amounting to more than $150 million.
Boston Dynamics said that only it believes that a 25-year study of robots will "release very high business value." When asked if it had thought of weaponizing the robot, the company refused to answer.
When Lebrat and his colleagues began researching kangaroo and ostrich videos at Carnegie Mellon University's research lab 40 years ago, building robots that could jump, run or forage like animals was the edge of engineering. But agile robots are no longer the product of what is described in science fiction, even though they still look like this. For example, Boston Dynamics' Atlas robot, a huge humanoid robot, can see it walking on broken ground, jumping onto a tripod, and even clumsy backflips. .
In the video, the company's robots wandered in a variety of places – in the company's single-story headquarters, in New Hampshire's ski huts, and on secluded meadows and woodlands near Leybert's home. In some videos, people kick the robot or poke them with a hockey stick to test their balance. Michael Cheponis worked with Leybert's groundbreaking robotics lab at the University of Chicago in the 1980s. He called his former colleague an "American hero" and insisted on "useful to the world." My heart, "There is no shadow of an evil doctor on the body."
In 2013, Google acquired Boston Dynamics and made it clear that it did not want to participate in defense work. Since then, the defense contracts of the two companies have gradually terminated. In December 2013, shortly after Google announced its acquisition plan, Andy Rubin, then Google’s chief robotics officer and the acquisition’s designer, rushed into the company’s lunch room and expressed inspiration to the employees. Speech. After the participants said, they felt a kind of relief and cautious optimism. A former employee recalled: “He talked about ambitious goals such as robots that can help the elderly and the infirm, robots working in the grocery store, and robots that deliver packages.â€
But Boston Dynamics and Google’s honeymoon soon changed. According to several people familiar with the matter, Rubin left the company in the second year, and his successor is increasingly dissatisfied with the practice of Albert. Issues of concern include: Boston Dynamics lacks the ability to focus on developing marketable products. Google is also worried about social media's "negative news about the company's "horrible robot video", which may damage its image.
Several former employees also said that within the company, the idea that "bots can be transformed into weapons" occasionally causes casual chat, snickering or discomfort in the workplace, but few people take it seriously. Andrew String, a former Boston Dynamics engineer, said: "They must know that people are afraid of their robots. Companies often receive hate mail and other strange things." But he said that Lebbert never felt It is necessary to explain for yourself, but to let this technology prove.
By 2016, Google intends to sell the company, and eventually Japanese technology giant Softbank became a buyer. The company already has a robotic portfolio, including the cute humanoid robot Pepper. The transaction was completed earlier this year. Softbank declined to disclose any news about its plans, but Boston Dynamics' latest job postings show that the company is paying more attention to developing products that can be sold. One of the positions is “Robot Evangelistâ€, which helps find “market-driven†robotic applications in logistics, construction and commercial security.
Laybert praised Google's efforts to push the company forward to complete "the best job we have ever done." But he said that under the leadership of Softbank, his team will once again play the role of "independent company." Lebbert said: "We have a great plan, and we are now working hard to achieve it."
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