By KIM BELLARD
I’m an innovation junkie, the additional on the market the higher, however once in a while it’s good to be reminded that simply because an organization has been round for some time, innovation remains to be doable.
Two examples: LEGO® and Kodak.
Let’s begin with LEGO. If you’re round any young children – and maybe not even all that small – you most likely have seen them enjoying with Legos. Legos have been round, in numerous incarnations, for longer than I’ve been alive, and that’s saying one thing. Most adults watching children assemble their Legos most likely have two reactions: “gosh, I want they’d make them even extra sophisticated” (observe to the oblivious reader – that was sarcastic), and “properly, a minimum of they’re not on their screens.”
So I guess loads of us have a barely shocked response to Lego’s announcement Monday Jan sixth to CES 2026: LEGO SMART Play™.
The important thing innovation is the SMART Brick, which “is full of applied sciences that convey play to life together with sensors, accelerometers, mild sensing and a sound sensor in addition to a miniature speaker pushed by an onboard synthesiser, and way more, along with simple wi-fi charging.” All that’s powered by a customized chip, which is smaller than one of many studs on a LEGO brick.
The LEGO Group states: “With none setup, SMART Bricks are magically ‘conscious’ of one another’s positions and orientations in 3D area, due to a novel, high-accuracy, magnetic positioning system. They’ll additionally talk by way of a self-organizing community that adapts to play. Superior onboard techniques let SMART Bricks comprehend and work together with one another, in addition to the followers constructing with them.” “Magic” on this context that means Bluetooth.
Nerdist calls it “probably the most thrilling innovation in screenless play ever,”
“For over 90 years, the LEGO Group has sparked creativeness and creativity in youngsters across the globe. Because the world evolves, so will we— innovating to fulfill the play wants of every new technology. LEGO SMART Play™ is the following thrilling chapter in our LEGO System in Play and one thing we’re tremendous enthusiastic about having the ability to convey to the world at this scale,” stated Julia Goldin, Chief Product & Advertising Officer of the LEGO Group.
Tom Donaldson, Senior Vice President & Head of Inventive Play Lab on the LEGO Group stated “The launch of LEGO SMART Play™ brings creativity, know-how, and storytelling collectively to make constructing worlds and tales much more participating, and all with out a display. We really consider we’re setting a brand new commonplace for interactive, imaginative experiences and might’t wait to see this innovation within the palms of children once we launch this 12 months.”
LEGO is partnering with Disney and Lucasfilm for 3 ‘All-In-One’ LEGO Star Wars™ constructing units, that includes SMART Bricks, SMART Tags, and Sensible Minifigures that “energy the system and permit builders’ creations to turn into interactive, responding to actions with applicable sounds and behaviors, permitting for a really responsive play expertise.” LEGO being LEGO, after all it’s all appropriate with current LEGO Methods-in-Play.
The three preliminary units are constructing units for the Purple Wing X-Wing, the Darth Vader TIE Fighter™, and the Throne Room Duel & A-Wing™, and might be out there March 1.
Nerdist’s Rotem Rusak raves:
However simply because a type of play doesn’t contain screens doesn’t imply it could’t evolve or incorporate the cool applied sciences at our disposal at this time. LEGO SMART Play isn’t making an attempt to rework LEGO into one thing it isn’t. Though its know-how is superior, the aim of it isn’t simply to create new tech, however to reinforce the normal play that has at all times been on the coronary heart of the LEGO model.
She provides: “That is really a phenomenal approach to make use of know-how. The LEGO Group is placing technological developments to work to bolster one thing that’s already so good, reasonably than making an attempt to rewrite or erase it, as we’ve seen occur in so many different arenas.”
That’s a phenomenal option to do innovation.
Then there’s Kodak. Once I noticed a headline in Digital Digicam World naming Kodak the “comeback king of 2025,” and one other overview calling the Kodak PIXPRO C1 as the most well liked digital camera of the 12 months, my first response wasn’t “how good for them,” however reasonably: “wait — Kodak remains to be round?”
To these of us of earlier generations, Kodak was the Apple of its day. Daring, modern, well-designed, omnipresent. With the appearance of digital cameras after which cell phone cameras, although, it was usually thought to have misplaced its mojo and, certainly, I may be forgiven for assuming it had curled up into chapter 11 or worse. Don Stapley in DCW explains:
The comeback king has been revitalizing its fortunes largely by betting large on its ultra-cheap PixPro line of compact cameras – you understand, the type of digital camera we had been all assured was dying out. The corporate that first made its title with point-and-shoot cameras a century in the past is doing so as soon as once more.
Chris Gampat’s overview in The Phoblographer gushes: “Make no mistake, the Kodak PIXPRO C1 is a digital camera that feels a lot just like the early iPhone if it was stuffed right into a digital camera physique.” Mr. Gampat additional tells us: “Pictures doesn’t have to be that severe on a regular basis…The Kodak PIXPRO C1 is a superb reminder of that in a time when the world round us is burning.”
Japanese picture retailer Map Digicam listed the Kodak PixPro FZ55 as one of the best promoting digital camera of the 12 months. Kodak even has a world licensing program, which, as The Washington Publish studies, is especially widespread in South Korea.
That’s not to say that every one is sunshine and roses in Rochester. Its second quarter 2025 monetary outcomes warned that its numerous debt obligations “increase substantial doubt concerning the Firm’s skill to proceed as a going concern as of the issuance date of the Firm’s second quarter financials,” though its 3rd quarter outcomes belied these considerations.
The purpose is, with all its historical past and with all of the headlines towards it, Kodak remains to be discovering methods to innovate in its area, not by being the flashiest or having probably the most trendy tech, however constructing on its model and delivering the experiences prospects are searching for.
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Not all the things needs to be AI. Not all the things even has to contain screens. Not all the things has to incorporate the most recent tech. Right here’s to improvements that, as Ms. Rusak says, “work to bolster one thing that’s already so good, reasonably than making an attempt to rewrite or erase it,”
Kim is a former emarketing exec at a serious Blues plan, editor of the late & lamented Tincture.io, and now common THCB contributor
