Is science fiction coming true? Is the world as we know it transforming into something more surreal every passing day? I don’t know about others but Google is trying its best to make it happen. Google has been pouring billions and billions of dollars to acquire a lot of companies, some of which are the best in the industry and are developing the most advanced artificial intelligence technology today.
Few of the most exciting acquisitions, according to me, are listed out in this article. Feel free to add more in the comments section.
Deep Mind – Acquired by Google in 2014. Founded in 2010 based out of London. It is an AI company that specializes in building algorithms that are capable of learning how to play video games very similar to how humans do. It is intended to mimic human way of learning by using information from the environment without the interference of an external source of teaching. According to Tech Insider, “DeepMind’s artificial intelligence technology is capable of mining social networks for patterns at record speeds and learning to play 49 Atari 2600 video games when given only minimal background information.” Also, its worthy to note, Elon Musk is an investor of this company.
Dark Blue Labs – They specialize in deep learning. Meaning, they interpret the data to understand natural languages better. They help in translation, dialogue, summarization, sentiment analysis, semantic parsing, question answering, and mapping language to action. This could come in handy for building humanoid robots that overcome the hurdle of understanding the nuances of language and human emotions conveyed via speech.
Vision Factory – Founded in 2014, they specialize in object and text recognition based on deep learning. They employ algorithms to improve the accuracy and speed of visual recognition. Expected to help in self driving automatic cars and Google image search and image recognition for Google maps, for now. Could one day, come in handy for human face recognition, decode the complexities of human emotions expressed through body language and facial gestures.
Meka Robotics – Founded in 2006, based out of San Francisco, they build hardware and software systems for robots to perform everyday tasks around people. They specialize in developing compliant robotics, force controlled actuators, manipulator design, real-time software, and highly integrated mechatronic systems. Here is a video of the docile robots with highly expressive eyes.
SCHAFT – Japanase company that made its mark by dominating the competition and finally winning the DARPA Robotics challenge in 2013. They build bio-inspired robots that mimic human anatomy. The robot can perfectly drive a car, walk through obstacles, climb a ladder and perform certain activities that are essential for firefighting. Here is the video. Transformers, anyone?
Boston Dynamics – You are living in a cave if you haven’t seen the video of the famous dog like robot trudging around and the poor robot gets kicked around to demonstrate stability. Well, that’s BigDog, one of the Boston Dynamics robots. Founded in 1992, they are an engineering and robotics design company that build advanced robots and closely work with DARPA and the US military.
Nest Labs – Co founded by former Apple engineers Tony Faddel and Matt Rogers in 2010, they develop home automation systems such as thermostats, smoke detectors and security systems that are programmable, self-learning, sensor driven and can be connected to Wifi. Android and Google incorporated with these smart homes, they will be everywhere.
Saving best for the last,
Calico –This is not an acquisition; it is rather an independent R&D biotech company founded in 2013 by Google. Although it is not an acquisition, the project is so crazy that it was worth mentioning. It is established to fight against neurodegeneration due to aging and other age related diseases. To put it dramatically, they are researching on immortality!
It is still debatable if it is safe in the long run, to let Google accumulate so much power but we should be grateful to be right in the middle of it all, to see pre Internet age and then Internet coming to life and now visionaries working towards pushing physical laws to change the reality as we know it. We are living in a Science fiction movie, so to say.
Here is a little video that inspired me to write this article on Google acquisitions.
Reference:
- How BIG is Google? (2014, February 6). Retrieved January 3, 2016, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-79uIRQiAFM
- Google’s Artificial Intelligence Plans. (2014, January 28). Retrieved January 3, 2016, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=As4fXoI8WpI
- Dark Blue Labs. (n.d.). Retrieved January 3, 2016, from https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/dark-blue-labs#/entity
- Vision Factory. (n.d.). Retrieved January 3, 2016, from https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/vision-factory#/entity
- Muoio, D. (2015, September 27). The 10 craziest projects Google has acquired. Retrieved January 3, 2016, from http://www.techinsider.io/the-10-craziest-projects-google-has-acquired-2015-9
- Nest Labs. (n.d.). Retrieved January 3, 2016, from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nest_Labs
- Calico. (n.d.). Retrieved January 3, 2016, from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calico_(company)
- Naughton, J. (2013, December 29). Google’s drive into robotics should concern us all. Retrieved January 3, 2016, from http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2013/dec/29/google-robotics-us-military-boston-dynamics