The biggest thing Intel brought to the CES table this year was undeniably its Sandy Bridge processor, but the electronics manufacturer also introduced a new way to play with Legos. Using an Intel Core i7 processor and Gentoo Linux, Intel programmers are bringing the digital world of toys into the physical one.
Intel’s research team in Seattle has been working to develop a more sophisticated way to interact with toys. The demo below shows how you can integrate virtual play using 3D image recognition that analyzes the Legos as well as your own gestures.
Don’t go looking for any “virtual-play” Lego sets quite yet though. The technology is still in the early stages. Check out the demo Mashable recorded below.
Intel is also working on extending this research for more practical purposes. According to the company’s press page, it’s working on surfaces that can recognize food items and then provide recipes with the touch of a finger. Calling this an “object-aware situated interactive system,” Intel says it hopes to develop a program where users could place multiple food items on the surface to come up with meals, and that it could possibly be refitted to multiple sizes and space.
