Andy Rubin's Next Big Thing at Google: Robots

What's This?

By Seth Fiegerman2013-12-04 14:41:39 UTC

Forget Amazon drones; Google is working on robots that could one day deliver items to customers.

The New York Times reports that Google has acquired seven robotics companies in the United States and Japan to help build a "new generation" of robots that would potentially be able to automate the electronics assembly process or even help with Google's same-day delivery efforts.

The man behind this initiative is Andy Rubin, the former head of Google's Android division, who stepped down from that role in March. At the time, Google's CEO and cofounder Larry Page suggested that Rubin would be working on another "moonshot" project — Google's word for a seemingly impossible idea.

“I feel with robotics it’s a green field,” Rubin told the Times in an interview. “We’re building hardware, we’re building software. We’re building systems, so one team will be able to understand the whole stack.”

Rubin did not offer much in the way of details on the record about the project or the potential uses for these robots, but the Times cites multiple anonymous sources who suggest cutting-edge robots could be one way to compete with Amazon. In recent months, Google has taken steps to compete with Amazon to become more of a shopping destination with revisions to its Google Shopping portal and the test launch of a same-day delivery service, Google Shopping Express.

Which is more absurd: having a robot step out of a self-driving car to deliver your package or a bunch of tiny drones flying through your neighborhood to do the same?

Image: Justin Sullivan/Getty