https://www.theverge.com/2018/11/15/18096469/google-robotics-schaft-japanese-bipedal-shut-down

Google continues to scale back its robot ambitions with the news that it’s shutting down Schaft, a little-known Japanese robotics team purchased by Alphabet back in 2013.

Schaft was best known for its work developing advanced bipedal robotics. The firm had its origins in the University of Tokyo’s robotics lab, where engineers built bio-inspired robot legs with metal bones, muscles, and tendons. The team later moved to more conventional systems, modifying industrial robotics hardware to be more powerful and precise.