If you thought Sphero's original BB-8 app-enabled robot was a blast back in 2015, just wait'til you see their take on Star Wars' most beloved droid: R2-D2. MSRP; same price on Amazon and the Apple store) is here in advance of Star Wars: The Last Jedi, which continues the sci-fi saga's main storyline, and it's just as immediately impressive as BB-8. It'll cruise around your home with ease using the iPhone/iPad companion app, the head rotates and reacts just like the real droid in the movie, and it even has movie-perfect sound effects and little animation routines. R2-D2 is not alone this time around, either, as the First Order BB-9E ($149.95 MSRP; same price on Amazon and the Apple store) droid from the new movie--essentially an evil version of BB-8, it seems--has joined the Sphero crew.

As we wind down after trawling IFA's labyrinthine halls, covering everything from phones to washing machines, wearables to haunted pianos, we wanted to point out the most notable things to come out of Europe's biggest tech show -- and it was quite the show this year. If you don't read anything else, read this. And if you do want even more, you can find everything else right here. When Microsoft began talking about its Mixed Reality program earlier this year, the whole thing left me pretty cold. The company claimed that it could slash the cost of a VR headset almost in half, and that the kit would even work with PCs that used only integrated graphics.

Smart toys maker Sphero has released two new "Star Wars" droid for Force Friday II. Sphero now sells an app-controlled version of the classic "Star Wars" R2-D2 droid, as well as an evil version of BB-8 called BB-9E. Like Sphero's original app-controlled BB-8 droid from 2015, the new R2-D2 and BB-9E droids feature very detailed representation of their movie counterparts. However, BB-9E hasn't actually appeared in any of the films yet, but it's expected to make an appearance in "Star Wars: The Last Jedi." First up is the Sphero R2-D2 app-controlled droid which is a 1:24 scale robot of the life-size version, accoridng to Mashable.

Star Wars fans – and their wallets – are set to feel the Force like never before. Toy-makers and tech companies have unveiled the latest line-up of Star Wars gadgets ahead of Force Friday II, with everything from augmented reality headsets to your own personal R2-D2, complete with holographic simulations. The haul, which will become available September 1, also includes a peek at characters set to become fan favorites in the upcoming installment, The Last Jedi, revealing BB-8's evil counterpart BB-9E, and the adorable wide-eyed Porgs. The engineers behind BB8 said when they were first presented with the challenge of creating a spherical robot by the Force Awakens director JJ Abrahms, they found several ways of creating the robot. One they settled on was to create a pendulum that sites inside the main body of the robot.