Hacker News Reader

Comment by Isamu | Hacker News Reader

The graph of govt funding (almost all defense dept) of Boston Dynamics can be seen here:

https://www.usaspending.gov/transparency/Pages/RecipientProf...

Peaked in FY 2012, went to nothing (negative?) after Google X bought it at the end of 2013. Not sure if that is more because Google X wanted a real product, or that the defense dept didn't want to continue the relationship, or what.

The marine corps passed on big dog as "too loud" at the end of 2015, that killed a potential customer for that product.

View on HN

> The marine corps passed on big dog as "too loud" at the end of 2015, that killed a potential customer for that product.

and if you look at the latest gen, the robots clearly are quieter-so BD is still listening to the needs of the military.

My take: This company can make boku bucks selling to the military, but not while Google is the parent. They've had military applications in mind this whole time, but held back from making the sales. To let this company soar, it needed to get out from under the google umbrella.

Google wont sell to the military, but apparently they will fund years of R&D for military use cases. Unfortunately the sale price that google will get for BD will take into account the future Military contracts that will be available now. Meaning Google will be indirectly profiting off selling robots to the military.

beaucoup

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/beaucoup

but I meant $ not ₣

"BokuBucks" sounds like a pretty great name for a startup.

"The marine corps passed on big dog as "too loud" at the end of 2015, that killed a potential customer for that product."

That was apparently a subcontractor failure. The prototype BigDog was powered by an off the shelf constant-speed gasoline engine driving a generator and hydraulic pump. This was inefficient, but good enough for the R&D version. The LS3 militarized version was supposed to have a quiet variable-speed Diesel plus some battery backup. (The US military is all-Diesel now. Gasoline tankers have no place in modern combat, where there are few secure rear areas.) So there was a subcontract for a small custom variable-speed Diesel engine with hydraulic pump and generator, with stringent noise and weight limitations. That apparently didn't work out as well as had been hoped. Quiet, tiny Diesels are hard.

I wonder if electric or hydraulic actuators are quieter?

Also, what would be the range of running the LS3 on batteries, then the recharge time with an on-board diesel?

There's likely another side to this- if Alphabet is putting a lot of money into a product type whose only past or foreseeable buyers are the US gov't, that would give the Feds some pretty fierce leverage in the event that Android winds up in a decryption legal battle like there's currently brewing over iPhones. BD could doubtlessly come up with something new for military gadget-buyers, but its unlikely to be such an emphatic killer app that their funding couldn't be used as a bargaining piece.

> only past or foreseeable buyers are the US gov't

They demoed warehousing robots that could automate some lifting, transporting, shelving tasks. There was definitely commercial potential there.

I interpret the graph as the Google acquisition being primarily responsible for killing the defense investment in BD.

> went to nothing (negative?) after Google X bought it at the end of 2013.

Yeah, does anyone know if BD paid the DoD ~3.5M in 2014? I haven't seen that kind of thing before.

I was just wondering the same thing

Probably a contract that was "on the books" in FY 2013 but later canceled before payment in FY 2014. I assume there is a considerable time lag in payment when dealing with the US govt.

This most likely. You get to count the money for a contract when it gets booked and awarded, even if you don't start work on it immediately or actually receive any money. If you book a contract (and count the money) in one fiscal year and it gets reduced or canceled in a subsequent one the reduction counts as a "loss" even if no money has actually changed hands yet.

It might have been an equipment buyback. I.e., some large piece(s) of hardware that BD wanted to keep going forward, but that was procured with funding from a DoD contract.

(Incidentally, looking at the detail for year 2014, the total giveback was $5M. It was balanced by $1.5M of receipts in another category.)

This coincides with Google's plans to phase out DoD contracts at BD: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/14/technology/google-adds-to-...

Reply on news.ycombinator.com