Google is reportedly getting back into robotics for reasons unknown

OMG IT’S BACK AGAIN; Google it taking another stab at making robots, despite failing to make its previous robotic efforts a commercial success.

The New York Times reports that the Big G has opened a new arm simply called “Robotics by Google”, which will be lead by artificial intelligence boffin Vincent Vanhoucke and will focus on creating machine learning smarts that help tech robots how to navigate areas and grip things; oooh matron.

And that’s about all we know so far. Google hasn’t revealed any official details about Robotics or its ambitions in the field of robots.

But making robots has been part of the search giant’s ambitions for a while; it used to have robot maker Boston Dynamics under its old ‘X’ experimental tech division, despite the firm’s efforts to create robots, both cute and terrifying, Google couldn’t find a way to flog them to paying customers so sold the company to SoftBank in 2017.

Google also stuck its hands directly into the robot world with a project called Replicant let by Android co-founder Andy Rubin. But Rubin left Google in 2014 after allegedly sticking his hands into other things and Replicant seemed to fade away.

Yet it now seems Google is ready to get back into robotics with gusto. Given the advancements it has made in machine learning and image processing, it could now be in a position to make smarter, more capable robots that can tap into its AI tech. Whether these end up being simple factory or warehouse robots or butler-esque droids has yet to be seen.

Still, Google has loads of cash and resources to throw at various experimental projects.

So even if Robotics ends up a flop, Google could still garner some interesting bit for it that could be pushed out to the open source world or flogged off to another firm. We’ll play the time will tell card, for the err… time being. µ