The idea of tech giant Alphabet (GOOGL) having its own line of humanoid robots sounds, honestly, a little unnerving. But the company that popularized the slogan “Don’t Be Evil” is indeed moving in that direction, putting investment in Apptronik as part of a huge funding round. Investors shrugged, and shares notched up fractionally in Thursday afternoon’s trading.
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Apptronik, a humanoid robot developer that finds itself in direct competition with Tesla (TSLA), managed to bring in $350 million in a Series A funding round that featured Alphabet at the front of the line. B Capital and Capital Factory were also in on the leading edge, reports noted. Apptronik had previously landed $28 million in an earlier funding round, so the huge new surge of cash is likely to represent big things ahead.
The new development means Google will likely have a piece of the household robot market of the future, as Apptronik is looking to get robots to work beyond the factory floor. Mostly the robots will focus on “repetitive tasks,” reports note, before being actively integrated into humans’ everyday operations. The target price on these robots? “Less than a car,” reports Apptronik. Google is also offering some programming support, with its DeepMind systems working on the robots’ AI.
Please Stop Insulting Our Maps
And then, in an unexpected twist, Google came out and admitted that many negative reviews about Google’s recent move to assent to President Trump renaming the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America have met with unexpected memory-holing. Yes, the negative comments about Google’s change have been deleted, Google admitted, and Google also actively shut down the ability to “suggest edits or report inaccuracies” about the newly-minted Gulf of America.
But given that the change has already been filed with the Geographic Names Information System (GNIS), and Google Maps draws much of its naming data from the GNIS, the issue is now moot, and the Gulf of America is indeed the Gulf of America. Thus, “reporting inaccuracies” in such a case is, basically, treated like spam, as the name is no longer an inaccuracy.
Is Alphabet a Buy, Hold or Sell?
Turning to Wall Street, analysts have a Moderate Buy consensus rating on GOOGL stock based on 27 Buys and 10 Holds assigned in the past three months, as indicated by the graphic below. After a 26.39% rally in its share price over the past year, the average GOOGL price target of $215.85 per share implies 17.39% upside potential.
