The first sign that Google now owns robotics heavyweight Boston Dynamics was when the Google bus rolled into the DARPA Robotics Challenge to offer engineers a place to kick back and take a nap.
Officials at Google, a company known for offering extravagant perks like meditation pods and beach volleyball courts to its employees, showed up at the Homestead Miami Speedway in southern Florida on the first day of the event to show support for its new team and to get a look at the Atlas robot, built by Boston Dynamics, and one of the stars of the challenge.
Last week, Google confirmed reports that it had acquired Boston Dynamics, a company known for creating impressive robots like the four-legged BigDog robot, as well as Atlas, a six-foot-tall, 330-pound two-legged robot designed to function much like a human.
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