It all started rather innocuously when Regina Dugan, former director of DARPA, took an executive role at Google in March 2012 and now is now heading up "Special Projects" for the Motorala company, also owned by Google.

Then there followed the announcement that Andy Rubin, responsible for previously spear-heading Android development at Google, would, instead, now be heading up a newly created Google Robotics division based out of Palo Alto, CA.

Then there followed a spree of Robotic company acquisitions including Meka Robotics.

And; just this morning, news that Google has now acquired Boston Dynamics, an independent company known for creating advanced robotics for organizations world wide, but most famously for it's association with DARPA and more famously it's "BigDog" project.

It all begs the question. What is Google up to?

Rumors abound. Everything from being in bed with the government, creating the Terminator equivalent of Skynet to more humanitarian ideas like creating machines to operate in environments considered to hazardous for humans. Nuclear Reactor cleanup for example. Then there's a more natural collaboration with it's autonomous vehicle division, which kind of reminds me of the taxi driver "Johnny Cab" from Total Recall. Autonomous robots driving "driver-less" cars. Or maybe as servants for the wealthy, or providing health care to the elderly?

A few years ago this would have all sounded like complete science-fiction, something from a movie, but within the next decade this could easily be a reality. Google has acquired quite an arsenal of Robotics experience in the last six months which demonstrates a serious motive to dominate the future of robotics.

The only piece of the puzzle I cannot work out, is why is Regina Dugan working in the Motorola division of Google and not the robotics division? Maybe that's the future name of their robots? Motorola Robotics? Has quite a nice ring to it.

Update Jan, 2nd 2014: So tonight, whilest on a random internet surfing tangent, I figured I'd try the URL http://www.motorolarobotics.com. As I looked at the URL a bit more I wondered about an abbreviated version. Perhaps Moto(rola) Robots. Guess who owns motorobots.com