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Bipedal humanoid robot “Atlas”, primarily developed by the American robotics company Boston Dynamics, is presented during a news conference at the University of Hong Kong, in this file photo taken October 17, 2013. Alphabet Inc has put Boston Dynamics, part of its robotics division, up for sale for lack of revenue potential, Bloomberg reported, citing people familiar with the plans. Possible acquirers include the Toyota Research Institute, a division of Toyota Motor Corp., and Amazon.com Inc., which makes robots for its fulfillment centers, according to one person. Google and Toyota declined to comment, and Amazon didn’t respond to requests for comment. Google acquired Boston Dynamics in late 2013 as part of a spree of acquisitions in the field of robotics. The deals were spearheaded by Andy Rubin, former chief of the Android division, and brought about 300 robotics engineers into Google. Rubin left the company in October 2014. Over the following year, the robot initiative, dubbed Replicant, was plagued by leadership changes, failures to collaborate between companies and an unsuccessful effort to recruit a new leader. At the heart of Replicant’s trouble, said a person familiar with the group, was a reluctance by Boston Dynamics executives to work with Google’s other robot engineers in California and Tokyo and the unit’s failure to come up with products that could be released in the near term. (Photo by Tyrone Siu/Reuters)
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