Fun fact and by coincidence, Andy Rubin's last official gig prior to this startup was head of Google's robotics division and oversaw Boston Dynamics.
Larry Page convinced Rubin to run the division after moving Sundar Pichai (Now Google's CEO) to takeover the Android project.
And so the tech world turns!
(1) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andy_Rubin
Edited per comment below for clarity
7.1
A novice asked the Master: "In the East, there is a great tree-structure that men call 'Corporate Headquarters'. It is bloated out of shape with vice presidents and accountants. It issues a multitude of memos, each saying 'Go Hence!' or 'Go Hither!' and nobody knows what is meant. Every year new names are put onto the branches, but all to no avail. How can such an unnatural entity exist?"
The Master replied: "You perceive this immense structure and are disturbed that it has no rational purpose. Can you not take amusement from its endless gyrations? Do you not enjoy the untroubled ease of programming beneath its sheltering branches? Why are you bothered by its uselessness?"
I never knew tank steering systems could be so interesting, though.
>The Robotics industry is more important in Japan than any other country in the world. Japan employs over a quarter of a million industrial robot workers. In the next 15 years, Japan estimates that number to jump to over one million and they expect revenue for robotics to be near $70 billion by 2025.[1]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_robotics#Japanese_rob...
When in Japan I've interacted with robots in a shopping mall: they had replaced their information stands by robots with ipads, so you could either ask them a question (didn't work due to the mall's noise) or just enter the relevant information on their belly's iPad-like devices.
'In 2006, AIBO was added into the Carnegie Mellon University Robot Hall of Fame with the description "the Sony AIBO represents the most sophisticated product ever offered in the consumer robot marketplace."'
'Rubin also went to SoftBank Group Corp. and negotiated a deal to include Essential in the firm's nearly $100 billion technology fund, but the investment was nixed after Apple joined the fund, according to a report in the Wall Street Journal. At the Code technology conference last week, Rubin confirmed the SoftBank talks and said the deal didn't happen because another investor that was a potential rival joined the fund and would have become an Essential backer. He didn't name Apple. "I just went to other investors," Rubin said. "I'm lucky to have good support from people that want to support these crazy, big, audacious things."'
And so the tech world turns :)