Google has been gunning for robot development for some time now, possibly lining it up to go head to head with Amazon over automated delivery services – and now it can do it over frozen lakes too, as it just bought Boston Dynamics, the company behind the Big Dog service robot that has been seen taking a kick from a researcher while walking on ice and managed to maintain its balance.

Steering wheel suction auto-pilots are the future though, obviously

This represents the eighth company related to robotics that Google has purchased in the past six months, though Boston Dynamics adds quite a pedigree to that menagerie. If Google is indeed going for a delivery system though, it's got a real boon in stability and speed thanks to BD's robots, which have been shown to run at impressive speed and make reasonably tight turns without stopping too.

Here's a video of the company's Wildcat robot from earlier this year: [yframe url='http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wE3fmFTtP9g']

What Google is planning though ultimately remains a mystery. While the delivery service is one possibility, that seems very domestic for such big investments and considering how Google has shaken up the digital world in the past with its products and services, it would be surprising if all we could look forward to with these robotic breakthroughs was a slightly more efficient system of receiving packages.

KitGuru Says: What do you guys think Google is working on with all these robotic firms? I'll head you off at the pass and say don't be hack and say Terminators or Matrix like brain stem injectors. What else you got?

[Thanks NYTimes]

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