Brick by Brick by (Sensible) Brick – The Well being Care Weblog

By KIM BELLARD

I’m an innovation junkie, the additional on the market the higher, however from time to time IT’s good to be reminded that simply because an organization has been round for some time, innovation remains to be potential.

Two examples: LEGO® and Kodak.

Let’s begin with LEGO. In case you are round any young children – and maybe not even all that small – you in all probability 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 in all probability have two reactions: “gosh, I want they’d make them even extra difficult” (notice to the oblivious reader – that was sarcastic), and “properly, no less than they’re not on their screens.”

So I wager a variety 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 filled with applied sciences that deliver 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 area, due to a novel, high-accuracy, magnetic positioning system. They’ll additionally talk through 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 which 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 kids across the globe. Because the world evolves, so can we— innovating to satisfy the play wants of every new technology. LEGO SMART Play™ is the subsequent thrilling chapter in our LEGO System in Play and one thing we’re tremendous enthusiastic about having the ability to deliver to the world at this scale,” stated 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 stated “The launch of LEGO SMART Play™ brings creativity, Technology, and storytelling collectively to make constructing worlds and tales much more participating, and all and not using a display. We actually consider we’re setting a brand new normal for interactive, imaginative experiences and might’t wait to see this innovation within the palms of children after 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 into interactive, responding to actions with acceptable sounds and behaviors, permitting for a very responsive play expertise.” LEGO being LEGO, in fact 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 will likely be accessible March 1. 

Nerdist’s Rotem Rusak raves: 

However simply because a type of play doesn’t contain screens doesn’t imply IT can’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 Technology 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 an exquisite method to make use of Technology. The LEGO Group is placing technological developments to work to bolster one thing that’s already so good, relatively than making an attempt to rewrite or erase IT, as we’ve seen occur in so many different arenas.”

That’s an exquisite 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 well liked digicam of the yr, my first response wasn’t “how good for them,” however relatively: “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 typically thought to have misplaced its mojo and, certainly, I could be forgiven for assuming IT had curled up out of business 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 form of digicam 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 review 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 critical 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 perfect promoting digicam of the yr. Kodak even has a global licensing program,  which, as The Washington Publish reports, is especially standard in South Korea.

That isn’t to say that each one is sunshine and roses in Rochester. Its second quarter 2025 financial results warned that its numerous debt obligations “increase substantial doubt concerning the Firm’s means to proceed as a going concern as of the issuance date of the Firm’s second quarter financials,” though its 3^rd quarter results 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 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, relatively 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