In less than a year, Google has bought more than a half-dozen robotics companies, setting the industry abuzz. But when I ask Google what it’s up to with all these robots, the company won’t say a thing.
“They are very careful they haven’t disclosed what they are doing,” says Richard Mahoney, the director of the robotics program at SRI International, a nonprofit technology accelerator in Menlo Park, Calif. Mahoney also served on the board of Redwood Robotics, one of the companies Google bought.
“If I had information that wasn’t proprietary, I would share it,” he says. “But right now they are being pretty careful about what they are telling people.”
Mahoney, like dozens of others in the industry, had to sign a nondisclosure agreement to do business with Google. As I poke around, talking to folks even at companies that hadn’t been bought by Google, these nondisclosure agreements keep popping up.
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