Over the past year, Google has bought eight robotics companies. Its most recent acquisition is an outfit called Boston Dynamics, which makes the nearest thing to a mechanical mule that you are ever likely to see. It's called Big Dog and it walks, runs, climbs and carries heavy loads. It's the size of a large dog or small mule — about 1 meter long,75 cm tall, weighs about 100 kg, has four legs that are articulated like an animal's, runs at 6.5 km/h, climbs slopes up to 35 degrees, walks across rubble, climbs muddy hiking trails, walks in snow and water, carries a 150 kg load, can toss breeze blocks and can recover its balance when walking on ice after absorbing a hefty sideways kick.
You don't believe me? Well, just head over to YouTube and search for "Boston Dynamics." There, you will find not only a fascinating video of Big Dog in action, but also confirmation that its maker has a menagerie of mechanical beasts, some of them humanoid in form, others resembling predatory animals. And you will not be surprised to learn that most have been developed on military contracts, including some issued by DARPA, the Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency, the outfit that originally funded the development of the Internet.
Should we be concerned about this? Yes, but not in the way you might first think. The notion that Google is assembling a droid army that will one day give it a "Star Wars" capability seems implausible (even if we make allowances for the fact that its mobile software is called android). No; what makes the robotics acquisitions interesting is what they reveal about the scale of Google's ambitions. For this is a company whose like we have not seen before.