The Morning After: Tuesday, November 14th 2017

Boston Dynamics' latest robotic terror

Richard Lawler
·Senior News Editor
Updated ·3 min read

Hey, good morning! You look fabulous.

While we prepare for The Engadget Experience today in Los Angeles, you can take a look back Monday's biggest stories, including yet another terrifying robot from the good folks at Boston Dynamics.

No PC or base station required.HTC Vive Focus is a standalone VR headset with 'world-scale' tracking

After a couple of teases earlier this year, HTC has finally unveiled its upcoming standalone VR headset at today's Vive Developer Conference in Beijing. Dubbed the Vive Focus, this all-in-one device features inside-out 6-degree-of-freedom (6DoF) "world-scale" tracking, meaning it doesn't require external base stations nor sensors, so you can get positional tracking anywhere at any time -- even on a train or plane, should you wish to.

It's official.Amazon is making a 'Lord of the Rings' TV series

Here's what we know so far: Amazon's series "will explore new storylines preceding J.R.R. Tolkien's The Fellowship of the Ring," and there's a possibility of a spinoff in the future.

See Spot jog.Boston Dynamics teases a 'new' SpotMini robot

Now that Boston Dynamics has moved from Google/Alphabet ownership to Softbank, it apparently plans to keep the funky robot concepts coming. The latest is this revised SpotMini robot, a dog-like all-electric helper. All we can see in the teaser clip is its new plastic-looking shell and that it's missing the arm shown with a previous version. The future is weird.

'LotR' for free?Amazon may be prepping a free ad-supported video service

Ad Age sources claim that Amazon is developing a free, ad-supported streaming service as a "complement" to Prime Video, reviving an idea that had surfaced back in 2014. For its part, Amazon says it has "no plans to create a free, ad-supported version of Prime Video."

Time to re-evaluate?After half a season, 'Star Trek: Discovery' is worth paying for

Is the new Star Trek series worth subscribing to yet another video service? Swapna Krishna was skeptical but now believes the answer, for Trek fans, is yes. The second half of its first season launches January 7th on CBS All Access.

The buddy system.AT&T and Verizon team up to build hundreds of new cell towers

Construction on the first towers will begin in early 2018.

How are the highs and lows?Bose uses Indiegogo to test wireless earbuds for sleep

There's a big name behind these crowdfunded 'sleepbuds.'

But wait, there's more...

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