Not one to let Amazon get all the robots-are-our-future
attention, Google's revealed that its already got plenty of
projects underway, and they're headed up by Andy Rubin.
Yep, the man who made the company's Android operating
system arguably the biggest smartphone OS in the world. In
the last six months, Google has managed to claim seven
different technology companies en route to its very real
robot plans, although its current target isn't the same
millions that fell in love with a cute green avatar. No, it's
more about manufacturing, increasing automation in factories
using a high level of manual labor -- and probably making a
load of money on the way. Rubin admitted in an interview
with the New York Times that "you have to think of time as
a factor". "We need enough runway and a 10-year vision."
The Googler was once a robotics engineer for Carl Zeiss, of
world-class camera lens fame and the loose analogy for
what he's aiming for with these new robot projects is a
windshield wiper that knows when it's raining and otherwise
needs no human intervention to do its job. It's a pretty
simple way of looking at it, but it also lines up with what
Google CEO Larry Page has said in the past about freeing
up humans from repetitive tasks through technology. Page
added on Google Plus (of course) that it was still "very early
days" for the project but that he "can't wait to see the
progress." And Rubin? "I have a history of making my
hobbies into a career... This is the world's greatest job.

www.engadget.com/2013/12/04/google-robots-andy-rubin/