By KIM BELLARD
I’m an innovation junkie, the additional on the market the higher, however sometimes 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 babies – 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 youngsters assemble their Legos most likely have two reactions: “gosh, I want they’d make them even extra difficult” (word to the oblivious reader – that was sarcastic), and “properly, not less than they’re not on their screens.”
So I wager numerous us have a barely stunned response to Lego’s announcement Monday Jan sixth to CES 2026: LEGO SMART Play™.
The important thing innovation is the SMART Brick, which “is filled with applied sciences that convey play to life together with sensors, accelerometers, gentle sensing and a sound sensor in addition to a miniature speaker pushed by an onboard synthesiser, and way more, along with straightforward 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 house, because of a novel, high-accuracy, magnetic positioning system. They’ll additionally talk by way of a self-organizing community that adapts to play. Superior onboard programs let SMART Bricks comprehend and work together with one another, in addition to the followers constructing with them.” “Magic” on this context which means Bluetooth.
Nerdist calls it “essentially the most thrilling innovation in screenless play ever,”
“For over 90 years, the LEGO Group has sparked creativeness and creativity in kids across the globe. Because the world evolves, so will we— innovating to satisfy 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 with the ability to convey to the world at this scale,” mentioned Julia Goldin, Chief Product & Advertising and marketing Officer of the LEGO Group.
Tom Donaldson, Senior Vice President & Head of Inventive Play Lab on the LEGO Group mentioned “The launch of LEGO SMART Play™ brings creativity, expertise, and storytelling collectively to make constructing worlds and tales much more partaking, and all with out a display. We actually consider we’re setting a brand new customary for interactive, imaginative experiences and may’t wait to see this innovation within the fingers of youngsters once we launch this yr.”
LEGO is partnering with Disney and Lucasfilm for 3 ‘All-In-One’ LEGO Star Wars™ constructing units, that includes SMART Bricks, SMART Tags, and Good Minifigures that “energy the system and permit builders’ creations to develop into interactive, responding to actions with applicable sounds and behaviors, permitting for a very responsive play expertise.” LEGO being LEGO, after all it’s all suitable with present LEGO Programs-in-Play.
The three preliminary units are constructing units for the Pink Wing X-Wing, the Darth Vader TIE Fighter™, and the Throne Room Duel & A-Wing™, and will probably be obtainable March 1.
Nerdist’s Rotem Rusak raves:
However simply because a type of play doesn’t contain screens doesn’t imply it could actually’t evolve or incorporate the cool applied sciences at our disposal as we speak. LEGO SMART Play isn’t attempting to remodel LEGO into one thing it isn’t. Though its expertise is superior, the aim of it isn’t simply to create new tech, however to reinforce the standard play that has all the time been on the coronary heart of the LEGO model.
She provides: “That is actually a good looking approach to make use of expertise. The LEGO Group is placing technological developments to work to bolster one thing that’s already so good, somewhat than attempting to rewrite or erase it, as we’ve seen occur in so many different arenas.”
That’s a good looking option to do innovation.
Then there’s Kodak. After I noticed a headline in Digital Digital camera World naming Kodak the “comeback king of 2025,” and one other evaluation calling the Kodak PIXPRO C1 as the most well liked digital camera of the yr, my first response wasn’t “how good for them,” however somewhat: “wait — Kodak remains to be round?”
To these of us of earlier generations, Kodak was the Apple of its day. Daring, progressive, well-designed, omnipresent. With the arrival of digital cameras after which cell phone cameras, although, it was typically thought to have misplaced its mojo and, certainly, I will 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 huge on its ultra-cheap PixPro line of compact cameras – you already know, the type of digital camera we had been all assured was dying out. The corporate that first made its identify with point-and-shoot cameras a century in the past is doing so as soon as once more.
Chris Gampat’s review 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 should be that critical on a regular basis…The Kodak PIXPRO C1 is an excellent reminder of that in a time when the world round us is burning.”
Japanese photograph retailer Map Digital camera listed the Kodak PixPro FZ55 as the perfect promoting digital camera of the yr. Kodak even has a global licensing program, which, as The Washington Publish reports, is especially in style in South Korea.
That’s not to say that every one is sunshine and roses in Rochester. Its second quarter 2025 financial results warned that its numerous debt obligations “elevate substantial doubt concerning the Firm’s capability to proceed as a going concern as of the issuance date of the Firm’s second quarter financials,” though its 3rd quarter results belied these issues.
The purpose is, with all its historical past and with all of the headlines in opposition to it, Kodak remains to be discovering methods to innovate in its house, not by being the flashiest or having essentially the most trendy tech, however constructing on its model and delivering the experiences clients are searching for.
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Not every part needs to be AI. Not every part even has to contain screens. Not every part 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, somewhat than attempting to rewrite or erase it,”
Kim is a former emarketing exec at a significant Blues plan, editor of the late & lamented Tincture.io, and now common THCB contributor
