Report: Alphabet may sell robotics firm to Toyota

Alphabet's Boston Dynamics has produced some of the coolest (and scariest) robotics advances in recent years, and now may soon be looking for a new home. According to Nikkei Asian Review, Toyota is in "final talks" to acquire two robotics divisions from Google-parent Alphabet, Boston Dynamics and Schaft, a company created by two former Tokyo University professors. Both divisions were acquired by Google in 2013. The move will allow Toyota to strengthen its artificial intelligence division, the Toyota Research Institute, that the automaker created in January. The institute currently has offices in Palo Alto, Calif., and Cambridge, Mass., not far from Boston Dynamics main headquarters in Waltham.