What is Boston Dynamics and why does Google want robots?

Google's recent acquisition of Boston Dynamics marks its eighth robotics purchase in the past six months, showing Google's "moonshot" robotics vision is more than just a pet project. Boston Dynamics is the most high-profile acquisition, however, instantly adding world-leading robotics capability, including robots that can walk all on their own, to Google's arsenal – as well as significant links to the US military – conjuring images of Skynet and the artificial intelligence-led robot uprising straight out of the 1984 film The Terminator. Boston Dynamics is an engineering and robotics design company that works across a wide range of computer intelligence and simulation systems, as well as large, advanced robotic platforms. The company was created as a technology spin-off from Massachusetts Institute of Technology by Prof Marc Raibert in 1992, then the founder and lead researcher of the Leg Lab – a research group focussed on systems that move dynamically, including legged robots. Raibert describes the Boston Dynamics team as "simply engineers that build robots", but in reality Boston Dynamics is much more than that.