Toyota said to be in talks to acquire two Google robotics companies

Toyota is close to acquiring two robotics companies from Google, according to a report in Wednesday's Nikkei newspaper. The newspaper said the two companies are in final talks, but details are yet to be discussed so the deal could still fall through. The deal would see Boston Dynamics, a developer of advanced two- and four-legged robots for the U.S. military, and Schaft, a Tokyo-based developer of humanoid robots, transferred to the Toyota Research Institute. The unit is a recently launched billion-dollar research arm based in Silicon Valley. Google acquired Boston Dynamics and Schaft several years ago as part of a push into robotics, but that hasn't gone anywhere since robotics head Andy Rubin left the company in late 2014.