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Alphabet is abandoning its Mineral robo-agriculture startup


The tech will be transferred “out to the agriculture ecosystem.”

According to Bloomberg, the Google parent company will license some of its farming technology to Driscoll’s, a berry producer that’s spent the last few years working with autonomous “plant buggies” Mineral created to study crops, soil, and other environmental factors. Mineral was spun into an independent subsidiary last year after graduating from Alphabet’s X lab, the experimental division that previously launched Google Glass and the Waymo self-driving car unit. While Alphabet has poured billionsof dollars into “moonshot” lab projects — including fish-tracking cameras, grocery delivery drones, and internet-providing balloons — most have struggled to achieve commercial viability.

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