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BD seems like it's mostly interesting in creating dogs. This new thing seems like it's a generic robot for making objects.

That was certainly the perception I used to have, but this demo video changed my mind. :)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fn3KWM1kuAw

BD focus has been mainly on control and locomotion whereas what Goog wants is neural net-ification of perception and control altogether.

These are complementary developments, Boston Dynamics is building robots that excel at navigating the world in the way its built. This seems to be intent on building robots that excel at interacting with the world in the way it wants.

The latter has a much broader customer base. From picking fruits to folding shirts to installing a headliner into a new vehicle, there are many applications.

Promising generalized solutions that apply to the physical world from advances at DeepMind (AlphaFold) perhaps?

X has done a lot of robotics projects. Boston dynamics wasn't Alphabet's only attempt.

Out of curiosity, what were the other ones?

A bunch of their public projects incorporate robotics in some way, just from glancing at x.company/projects. Everyday robot, mineral, wing, loon, waymo, makani. I'm sure there is a lot more going on, like intrinsic.