Andy Rubin To Head Up Google’s New Robots Division

We’re sure when Android’s founder, Andy Rubin, stepped away from the mobile operating system, many were wondering what he would be up to. Well as it turns out, Rubin has been working on robots for Google. This is according to a report from The New York Timesin which Rubin let on to the fact that Google had acquired seven different robot companies and have placed Rubin as the head of the new initiative.

Google has a division known as Google X where the company attempts projects that might not necessarily be directly related to Google’s own services and products, such as self-driving cars and whatnot. However the division that Rubin will be heading up will be separate from that, and in fact could actually be spun off as a separate entity if that was desired. For now Rubin and Google are keeping mum over the specifics of this new initiative, but one of the examples suggested could involve a more efficient supply chain.

According to Andrew McAfee, a principal research scientist at the M.I.T. Center for Digital Business, “There are still people who walk around in factories and pick things up in distribution centers and work in the back rooms of grocery stores,” suggesting that maybe Google could think of a way to use these robots to perform those tasks instead, and perhaps one day have robots perform deliveries instead of humans, which is what Amazon is hoping to do with Prime Air, and what UPS is also looking to do as well.

There’s no telling when we will see the fruits of Google’s efforts, but it will definitely be worth keeping an eye out for.

Tyler Lee
Categories: Robots
Tags: andy rubin, Google