By KIM BELLARD

I am an innovation junkie, the additional the higher, however every so often it is good to be reminded that innovation continues to be potential, even when an organization has been round for some time.

Two examples: LEGO® and Kodak.

Let’s begin with LEGO. You probably have young children round – and possibly not even that small – you have most likely seen them enjoying with Lego. Lego has been round, in numerous incarnations, longer than I have been alive, and that is saying one thing. Most adults who see children assembling their Legos most likely have one in every of two reactions: “Gosh, I want they’d make them immediately.” extra difficult” (word to the ignorant reader – that was sarcastic), and “effectively, at the very least they don’t seem to be on their display.”

I guess many people can have a considerably stunned response to Lego’s Monday, January 6 announcement at CES 2026: LEGO SMART Play™.

The principle innovation is the SMART Brick, which is “filled with applied sciences that carry the sport to life, together with sensors, accelerometers, mild detection and a sound sensor, in addition to a miniature speaker powered by a built-in synthesizer, and rather more, along with easy wi-fi charging.” All that is made potential by a customized chip, which is smaller than one of many studs on a LEGO brick.

The LEGO Group states: “With none configuration, SMART Bricks are magically ‘conscious’ of one another’s positions and orientations in 3D area, due to a brand new, high-precision magnetic positioning system. They’ll additionally talk by way of a self-organizing community that adapts to the sport. Superior built-in methods be sure that SMART Bricks can perceive and talk with one another, in addition to with the followers who construct with them.” “Magic” on this context means Bluetooth.

Nerdist calls it “essentially the most thrilling innovation in screenless gaming ever,”

“For greater than 90 years, the LEGO Group has been sparking creativeness and creativity in kids all over the world. Because the world evolves, so can 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 excited to carry to the world at this scale,” stated Julia Goldin, Chief Product & Advertising Officer of the LEGO Group.

Tom Donaldson, Senior Vice President & Head of Artistic Play Lab on the LEGO Group stated: “The launch of LEGO SMART Play™ brings collectively creativity, expertise and storytelling to make constructing worlds and tales much more participating, all with no 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 arms of youngsters after we launch this 12 months.”

LEGO companions 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 change into interactive, responding to actions with the correct sounds and behaviors, enabling a very responsive play expertise.” After all, LEGO being LEGO, it is all suitable with present LEGO Methods-in-Play.

The primary three 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 out there from March 1.

Nerdist’s Rotem Broken raves:

However simply because a type of play would not contain screens does not imply it will possibly’t evolve or incorporate the cool applied sciences we have now at present. LEGO SMART Play doesn’t attempt to remodel LEGO into one thing it isn’t. Whereas the expertise is nice, its goal shouldn’t be solely to create new expertise, but additionally to reinforce the normal play that has at all times been on the core of the LEGO model.

She provides: “This can be a actually fantastic approach to make use of expertise. The LEGO Group is utilizing technological developments to reinforce one thing that’s already so good, reasonably than attempting to rewrite or erase it, as we have now seen occur in so many different areas.”

That is a good way to do innovation.

Then there’s Kodak. Once I noticed a headline in Digital digicam world by which I known as Kodak the “comeback king of 2025,” and in one other overview calling the Kodak PIXPRO C1 the preferred digicam of the 12 months, my first response wasn’t “how good for them,” however reasonably, “wait, Kodak nonetheless exists?”

For these of us from earlier generations, Kodak was the Apple of its time. Daring, modern, well-designed, ubiquitous. Nonetheless, with the appearance of digital cameras after which cell phone cameras, it was extensively believed to have misplaced its mojo, and certainly I might be forgiven for assuming it had gone bankrupt or worse. Enter Don Stapley DCWW explains:

The comeback king has revived his fortunes, largely by betting massive on his ultra-cheap PixPro line of compact cameras — you realize, the sort of digicam we have been all positive would change into extinct. The corporate that first made its identify with point-and-shoot cameras a century in the past is doing so once more.

Chris Gampat’s overview in The photographer says: “Make no mistake: the Kodak PIXPRO C1 is a digicam that appears as very similar to the early iPhone if it have been stuffed right into a digicam physique.” Mr. Gampat goes on to inform us, “Pictures would not at all times should be so critical…The Kodak PIXPRO C1 is an excellent reminder of that at a time when the world round us is on hearth.”

Japanese photograph retailer Map Digicam named the Kodak PixPro FZ55 the best-selling digicam of the 12 months. Kodak even has a world licensing program, which, like The Washington Publish experiences, is particularly widespread in South Korea.

That is to not say every little thing is all roses and moonshine in Rochester. The second quarter 2025 monetary outcomes warned that the varied 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 the three^rd The quarterly outcomes contradicted these considerations.

The purpose is that Kodak, for all its historical past and all of the headlines towards it, continues to be discovering methods to innovate in its area, not by being the flashiest or by having essentially the most cutting-edge expertise, however by constructing on its model and delivering the experiences clients need.

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Not every little thing must be AI. Not every little thing even has to contain screens. Not every little thing must have the most recent expertise. To the improvements that, as Ms. Rusak says, “improve one thing that’s already so good, reasonably than attempting to rewrite or erase it.”

Kim is a former emarketing supervisor at a serious Blues plan, editor of the late & lamented Tincture.ioand now common THCB contributor