Willow Garage Shut Down In January

Willow Garage, a research lab focused on robotics with many notable achievements under its belt, shut down last month, reports Bloomberg. The business decision was made by founder Scott Hassan, who has elected to work full time as CEO of Suitable Technologies, a company that resulted from work done at Willow Garage.

Willow Garage was a grand undertaking, and Hassan invested many millions of his own money into the research lab, providing financial backing for renown robotics engineers to go after whatever it was that inspired them. As a result, multiple startups were spawned, and Google is among the corporations that have acquired them.

The research lab had a good run, spending seven years producing ample research in the field of robotics, as well as open-source robotic operating system development. Willow Garage was generous with many of its projects and developments, and produced a solid foundation that others could built upon, moving the field as a whole ahead.

We've covered many of Willow Garage's efforts over the years, some of which you can check out in the timeline below. Many ideas that arose as part of Willow Garage ended up being ported into separate startups, and now that the research lab is no more, the engineers that pioneered under it are left to pursue those other opportunities.

SOURCE: Bloomberg