A new report published by the New York Times states that Google has moved Andy Rubin, the man behind the Android operating system, to head a major robotics project. Google has been secretive about their ambitions in the field of robotics (except for their self-driving car) unlike Amazon's plans to use drones to deliver packages. The company has been investing a lot in the robotics field and has acquired seven companies specializing in the technology over the last six months alone. According to NYT, Google is working on industrial applications of robotics such as manufacturing and assembly of electronics rather than consumer applications as of now.

If Amazon can imagine delivering books by drones, is it too much to think that Google might be planning to one day have one of the robots hop off an automated Google Car and race to your doorstep to deliver a package?

Google executives acknowledge that robotic vision is a "moonshot." But it appears to be more realistic than Amazon's proposed drone delivery service, which Jeff Bezos, Amazon's chief executive, revealed in a television interview the evening before one of the biggest online shopping days of the year.

Over the last half-year, Google has quietly acquired seven technology companies in an effort to create a new generation of robots. And the engineer heading the effort is Andy Rubin, the man who built Google's Android software into the world's dominant force in smartphones.