The acquisition gives Hyundai access to a wider range of technologies it can use to expand its logistics robot offerings. While Spot may have a reputation for being a rather terrifying robotic dog, for instance, it also has the capability

Boston Dynamics is a Massachusetts Institute of Technology spinoff first acquired by Google in 2013. In 2017, Google’s parent company Alphabet sold it to Softbank, which had a “vision of catalyzing the next wave of smart robotics.” Hyundai Motor has

Boston Dynamics, the robotics company behind nightmare-fuel products like Spot, may be headed to Hyundai, Bloomberg reports. Sources say that current owner Softbank is in talks with the Korean automaker. The deal could be worth up to $1 billion, though Bloomberg notes that nothing is finalized yet, and the deal could eventually fall apart. Hyundai may seem like a surprising parent at first if you’re only familiar with its cars, but the company also has an entire group focused on industrial robotics, where Boston Dynamics’ technology would fit nicely. And Hyundai is no stranger to diving into burgeoning technology —

The arm will offer six degrees of freedom and will be able to both open doors and pick up items as part of its standard programming. BD’s new CEO Rob Playter told TechCrunch that “like the base robot, there’s much more to the arm than just hardware. It will ship with an intuitive UI, and be equipped to operate through both telemanipulation and supervised autonomous behaviors via the tablet.”

Additionally, BD announced that it will also begin selling a charging dock that the Spots can autonomously guide themselves to and lay down atop to recharged their batteries like a canine-shaped Roomba.

As you might have guessed, the LAFD is pretty excited about its new tool. "It may make us rethink some of the ways we tackle fires when it's available," Ralph Terrazas, the chief of the LAFD, told The Los Angeles Times.

The RS3 has already seen action on the field. On Tuesday, the fire department diverted the robot from a demonstration near Dodger Stadium to fight a fire that engulfed two Fashion District buildings in the city's downtown core. It worked with more than 130 human firefighters to put out the blaze, helping to clear debris inside the building where the