For years, people have joked that Boston Dynamics is more a maker of viral videos than of robots. The company has dazzled (and sometimes creeped out) the internet with clips of its robotic dog Spot walking, climbing stairs, jumping, dancing, and gyrating--but not doing any real work. In September, though, the company (which was previously part of Alphabet's X research arm) started leasing Spots to companies that want to put it to work, at least in pilot projects. The first to debut a full application using Spot is a German-American firm called HoloBuilder. It's equipped the robot to regularly walk large construction sites, collecting 360-degree images, a la Google Street View, so engineers can track the progress of work.