Perhaps Boston Dynamics should make a robotic vacuum cleaner. One that’s more intelligent than the Roomba.
Or even a lawnmower.
This can become their cash cow, that they use to fund the R&D into their serious industrial robots.
Hyundai to acquire Boston Dynamics
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Re: Hyundai to acquire Boston Dynamics
#102This should be very interesting, I'm not clear on the relationships after their split but Hyundai has a huge reach across every sort of heavy industry you can think of. I found another article that says it is the motor division that is acquiring Boston Dynamics. I'm surprised the US allowed this, Boston Dynamics seems like the sort of company they would keep close to home. https://www.kedglobal.com/newsView/ked202012…
What reason would there be to disallow it?
It's interesting to question the presumption that it is acceptable to sell a company in a way that gives foreign control. Not every country allows this. China is growing very well with it restricted.
Re: Hyundai to acquire Boston Dynamics
#103Earlier quoted context omitted.
What reason would there be to disallow it?
ITAR or even classified The robots are practically weapons. Imagine the 4-legged one chasing you down like a large cat could, then pouncing on you. Imagine the 2-legged one with armor, relentlessly stalking you like Terminator.
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Re: Hyundai to acquire Boston Dynamics
#104Earlier quoted context omitted.
Doing what you want works until the money runs out.
If your potential grows faster then the money runs out, you can play this game indefinitely. Source: River in Brazil
Didn't Amazon just roll its profits back into growth in new industries. If they stopped that they could have shown profits earlier.
Re: Hyundai to acquire Boston Dynamics
#105Earlier quoted context omitted.
Do you know if Tesla's challenges have been written up anywhere? I'm very curious what they tried and failed to automate.
The reference to Ford is reminiscent of this: https://arstechnica.com/cars/2018/04/experts-say-tesla-has-r... It's quoted, along with a bunch of other articles from 2018, here: https://www.iqsdirectory.com/resources/teslas-big-problem-ex...
> [Ars quoting Musk in 2017] "We are pushing robots to the limit in terms of the speed that they can operate at, and asking our suppliers to make robots go way faster, and they are shocked because nobody has ever asked them that question," Musk said on a conference call last November.
I saw a video, years ago, when Tesla was installing/setting up/showing off the robots. The demonstrated method and tool to 'program' the robot arm was terrible, and the resulting arm motion was excessive.
My takeaway was Tesla needed experienced staff to optimize the arm path.
>[1980s GM quote] As Hamtramck's assembly line tried to gain speed, the computer-guided dolly wandered off course. The spray-painting robots began spraying each other instead of the cars.... When a massive computer-controlled 'robogate' welding machine smashed a car body, or a welding machine stopped dead, the entire Hamtramck line would stop. Workers could do nothing but stand around and wait while managers called in the robot contractor's technicians.
This seems like a solvable problem.
Re: Hyundai to acquire Boston Dynamics
#106Really?! Only $1B for a real company with unique and futuristic products? When I look at the valuations of some Internet companies - it is sad!
Re: Hyundai to acquire Boston Dynamics
#107Earlier quoted context omitted.
What reason would there be to disallow it?
ITAR or even classified The robots are practically weapons. Imagine the 4-legged one chasing you down like a large cat could, then pouncing on you. Imagine the 2-legged one with armor, relentlessly stalking you like Terminator.
You should see what Robomasters is cooking up - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qrhvZhPaxQ4
2019 Finals -https://youtu.be/-o_WYEoxWGY?t=438
Re: Hyundai to acquire Boston Dynamics
#108Earlier quoted context omitted.
ITAR or even classified The robots are practically weapons. Imagine the 4-legged one chasing you down like a large cat could, then pouncing on you. Imagine the 2-legged one with armor, relentlessly stalking you like Terminator.
Imagine getting blown up by a guided missile launched from a largely automated aircraft.
Or become a reporter and experience it for yourself.
https://blogs.findlaw.com/dc_circuit/2020/11/doj-argues-us-c...
Re: Hyundai to acquire Boston Dynamics
#109I wonder if this is because of the SoftBank cash crunch. Or if it's just nobody has figured out how to make money with Boston Dynamics. Though if the 1 billion sale price is true, maybe flipping BD is the only way to make money with it.
Looks like they bought it for around $100m, and then pumped additional $37m into it, which would be 7x increase. Not terrible, but probably nothing to write home about, considering Softbanks "world-changing bets" scope.
This does sound like shedding off bets that didn't quite live up to the expectation, and making a small[0] profit off of it.
[0] Small in the eye of Softbank. If you have a $100B fund and got 0.7B profit, those 0.7% are going to move your needle very much.
Re: Hyundai to acquire Boston Dynamics
#110Really?! Only $1B for a real company with unique and futuristic products? When I look at the valuations of some Internet companies - it is sad!
That's just software versus hardware.
If you have a solid software platform you can scale it up to millions of users at very little operation cost per user.
But a robot? You have a very significant cost per unit. Not to mention lots of risk if you have any warranties and for your brand.
Like if you ship 100k units and they have a critical component that gives out after 2 months due to a bad manufacturing run that's a huge cost.
You don't have that type of risk with software. Software is just way less risky and way more profitable.