In the last year, Google has bought just about every small company (i.e. eight companies) doing interesting work in robotics — including Boston Dynamics, whose creature is shown in this video.

In the same period, Apple has, er, instituted a share-buyback program and brought out some incrementally-improved products.

So here’s my question (which is prompted by something Jason Calcanis said): which company is focussed on the distant future? The obvious inference seems to be that Apple can’t think of anything really radical to do with its mountain of cash.

UPDATE: Charles Arthur points out that, according to Wikipedia, Apple acquired ten companies in 2013, of which three are involved in mapping and two in semiconductors. So maybe they are up to something.