Hyundai buys 80% of Boston Dynamics

[Bradley Prior]

Hyundai buys 80% of Boston Dynamics

Hyundai Motor Group agreed to buy a controlling stake in Boston Dynamics Inc. in a deal that values the mobile robot firm at $1.1 billion. [Bloomberg]

 

[ToxicBunny]

Interesting move, but one that makes lots of sense from a autonomous driving point of view given BD's experience... bit left field in a way but it makes sense.

 

[Thor]

Tesla, about to get competition.

 

[DailyTech]

Go Hyundai, stick it to Elon

 

[mercurial]

Can't wait to buy my first Transformer.

 

[Chris.Geerdts]

I'm surprised the US allowed this acquisition of a company which has been working with the US military on robotics, to now be owned by a foreign-based company.

 

[JohnStarr]

...soon to be debuting the Hyundai Bumblebee hatch, which can also transform into a robot.

 

[Ninja'd]

Can't wait to buy my first Transformer.

A weapon to surpass Metal Gear.

 

[Radioboy]

The last thing we need is Terminator with a 7 year warranty.

 

[RedViking]

Those are the people with the robot dog thingy..... Nice. Would be nice to walk with one of those.

 

[system32]

I'm surprised the US allowed this acquisition of a company which has been working with the US military on robotics, to now be owned by a foreign-based company.

If Huawei then buys Hundai...

 

[animal531]

The problem with Boston Dynamics is that they (and everyone else that has bought them) don't really know what to do with their products. Spot is cool, but not nearly cool enough for $75k+. At that price they're only going to sell some test pieces here and there to the rich to play with.

They need to figure out how to make it faster and stronger, less noisy, last longer per charge and a lot more cost efficient, so there's still a long way to go. And that is just for Spot, which basically just walks around, nevermind a better more useful bot.