By KIM BELLARD
I’m an innovation junkie, the additional on the market the higher, however now and again it’s good to be reminded that simply because an organization has been round for some time, innovation continues to be potential.
Two examples: LEGO® and Kodak.
Let’s begin with LEGO. If you’re round any babies – and maybe not even all that small – you in all probability have seen them taking part in 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 in all probability have two reactions: “gosh, I want they’d make them even extra difficult” (observe to the oblivious reader – that was sarcastic), and “nicely, a minimum of they’re not on their screens.”
So I wager numerous 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 filled with 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 far 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 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 methods 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 “essentially 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 can we— innovating to satisfy the play wants of every new era. 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,” mentioned Julia Goldin, Chief Product & Advertising Officer of the LEGO Group.
Tom Donaldson, Senior Vice President & Head of Artistic Play Lab on the LEGO Group mentioned “The launch of LEGO SMART Play™ brings creativity, know-how, and storytelling collectively to make constructing worlds and tales much more partaking, and all with no display screen. We really imagine we’re setting a brand new customary for interactive, imaginative experiences and might’t wait to see this innovation within the arms of children 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 Sensible Minifigures that “energy the system and permit builders’ creations to turn out to be interactive, responding to actions with applicable sounds and behaviors, permitting for a really responsive play expertise.” LEGO being LEGO, in fact it’s all suitable 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 shall be accessible March 1.
Nerdist’s Rotem Broken raves:
However simply because a type of play doesn’t contain screens doesn’t imply it might probably’t evolve or incorporate the cool applied sciences at our disposal at present. 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 boost the normal play that has all the time been on the coronary heart of the LEGO model.
She provides: “That is really a good looking method to make use of know-how. The LEGO Group is placing technological developments to work to bolster one thing that’s already so good, moderately than making an attempt to rewrite or erase it, as we’ve seen occur in so many different arenas.”
That’s a good looking strategy 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 evaluation calling the Kodak PIXPRO C1 as the most popular digicam of the yr, my first response wasn’t “how good for them,” however moderately: “wait — Kodak continues to be round?”
To these of us of earlier generations, Kodak was the Apple of its day. Daring, progressive, well-designed, omnipresent. With the appearance of digital cameras after which cell phone cameras, although, it was typically thought to have misplaced its mojo and, certainly, I might be forgiven for assuming it had curled up into chapter 11 or worse. Don Stapley in DCWW explains:
The comeback king has been revitalizing its fortunes largely by betting massive on its ultra-cheap PixPro line of compact cameras – , the form of digicam we have 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 evaluation in The Phoblographer gushes: “Make no mistake, the Kodak PIXPRO C1 is a digicam that feels a lot just like the early iPhone if it was stuffed right into a digicam 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 the most effective promoting digicam of the yr. Kodak even has a world licensing programwhich, as The Washington Put up storiesis especially common in South Korea.
That isn’t to say that each one is sunshine and roses in Rochester. Its second quarter 2025 monetary outcomes 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 outcomes belied these issues.
The purpose is, with all its historical past and with all of the headlines in opposition to it, Kodak continues to be discovering methods to innovate in its area, not by being the flashiest or having essentially the most trendy tech, however constructing on its model and delivering the experiences clients are in search of.
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Not every little thing must be AI. Not every little thing even has to contain screens. Not every little thing has to incorporate the newest tech. Right here’s to improvements that, as Ms. Rusak says, “work to bolster one thing that’s already so good, moderately 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.ioand now common THCB contributor
