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By Angela Haggerty, Reporter

December 14, 2013 | 1 min read

Google has acquired robotics company Boston dynamics, an engineering company that has designed mobile research robots for the Pentagon, the company confirmed on Friday.

The firm is known for its creation of robots BigDog, Cheetah, WildCat and Atlas, and some of its machines can run faster than humans.

Google’s robotics interest is being led by the man who oversaw the development of Android, Andy Rubin, and the acquisition marks Google’s eighth robotics company in the last six months.

The tech giant has not said what exactly it plans to do with the technology, but Rubin has described Google’s robotics effort as a “moonshot”, adding that commercial robots from Google could be available in the next several years.

Boston Dynamics was founded in 1992 by former MIT professor Marc Raibert, and the company has carried out work for the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency and Darpa.

Google said the company will honour any existing military contracts but it does not plan on becoming a military contractor.

Google Robotics Boston Dynamics

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