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Lego will soon make bricks out of sugarcane bioplastics
Over the next few years, select Lego pieces will start being made with plant-derived materials as part of the company's pledge to create more sustainable products. Parts resembling leaves, bushes and trees will be made from a polyethylene created with ethanol made from sugarcane. And while these only make up between 1 and 2 percent of all the pieces Lego makes, it's "a great first step in our ambitious commitment of making all Lego bricks using sustainable materials," Lego VP of environmental responsibility Tim Brooks said on its website. These 'green' pieces will be released in sets starting this year.
Hasbro's first HasLab toy is a replica of Jabba the Hutt's barge
At this year's Toy Fair in New York, Hasbro announced HasLab, a new program that aims to bring to life special creations like a massive, four-foot long recreation of Jabba the Hutt's sail barge. The company is taking inspiration from platforms like Kickstarter and Indiegogo, too: In order for the barge to become a real for-sale production item, Hasbro wants to gather 5,000 $499 pre-orders by midnight on April 3rd.
Lego AR-Studio puts virtual dragons in your physical sets
After the costly failure of its toy-to-life video game Lego Dimensions, Lego is turning to augmented reality to mix real sets with virtual elements. The new Lego AR-Studio app for iOS taps into Apple's ARKit platform to add animations and audio-visuals to the company's physical toys. Hold your smartphone over select Lego City and Ninjago sets and you'll be able to summon fire-breathing dragons, trains, and firetrucks dousing flames with hoses. Plus, any special escapades can be captured using the app's built-in camera. Whereas it may not awaken your inner-child (leave that to Nintendo), Lego-mad tikes should get a real kick out of it.
The best toys and coding kits for kids
This is the first year that Engadget has included a toy section in its holiday gift guide, and it's already one of the biggest (and in our opinion, best) sections. Here you'll find both coding kits from Lego and others intended to teach little one basic programming skills, as well as toys that just happen to be electronic in nature. And yes, the re-released Tamagotchi pets made the list -- you know, for the nostalgic millennial on your list.
Lego pulls the plug on future 'Dimensions' toys
Chalk up another casualty in the decline of collectible-based video games: Lego, Warner Bros. and TT Games have stopped producing new expansions for Lego Dimensions. They'll continue to sell existing expansion packs, and servers will continue to run, but there won't be any new toys or gameplay. The companies didn't explain the move in the announcement tweet beyond saying it came after "careful consideration." We've asked if they can elaborate and will let you know if there's more they can say on the record.
'Women of NASA' Lego set available starting November 1st
Back in March, we reported that Lego would make a "Women of NASA" set, which was submitted to the Lego Ideas competition by MIT deputy news editor Maia Weinstock. Now, the set is finally ready. It will be available November 1st for $25/€25.
Algobrix teaches coding with Lego-like bricks
Legos have been a beloved for decades as toys that teach constructive aesthetics and foster DIY creativity. Then the company started releasing Mindstorm kits to turn static models into moving robots with a little programming magic -- but these were always aimed at older kids with some tinkering prowess. Algobrix, a brick-based system going live on Kickstarter today, aims to teach block-loving children the elements of coding without having to touch a computer.
Sorting Lego sucks, so here’s an AI that does it for you
Neural networks are currently being tasked with everything from adding animations to video games to reproducing images taken from MRI scans. Training the AI, which needs to be fed vast amounts of data, can be a slog and even then it may not produce completely accurate results. But when it comes to recognizing and classifying images and objects the AI can cut out a lot of leg work, as Jaques Mattheij found out when he built his own neural network for the novel task of sorting through his massive Lego collection.
Sony taps crowdfunding to deliver its kid-friendly coding kit
Sony's answer to Lego Mindstorms is a robot-building kit called Koov. It's the first product from Sony's Global Education division, and it's meant to help kids learn to code while they have fun building robots. The company has put the design kit on Indiegogo to gather some $100,000 in crowd-sourced funding while getting valuable feedback on the kits, which include more than 30 hours of kid-friendly coding instruction and multi-colored blocks with sensors and actuators. The project currently sits at almost $5,000 in funding; kits are set to ship out to backers in November.
Sony's fantastical Toio cubes combine robotics with papercraft
Sony's made some endearingly offbeat electronic toys over the years -- looking at you people who gave your Aibos funerals. The company's newest addition to its crowdfunding site, First Flight, is likely to evoke the same response. Say hello to the Toio cube.
Lego Boost coding blocks arrive during summer vacation
In January, Lego announced a new line of products called Boost aimed at teaching kids aged seven and up how to code. Now, Lego Boost is available for preorder at a price of $160. Units will begin shipping in late July.
Your next Lego masterpiece is a $120 NASA Saturn V rocket
Lego has been inspired by NASA lately. Last month, the toymaker paid homage to women who made great contributions to the space agency, and now it's revealing an Apollo Saturn V set that also looks incredible. As seen in the picture above, this rocket stands at a little more than three feet tall and can be positioned horizontally or vertically. The idea for the piece was born out of the company's Lego Ideas program, which lets people from all over the world submit concepts they'd like to see get made. Made up of nearly 2,000 Lego pieces, the NASA Apollo Saturn V is expected to hit stores in June for $120 -- which is a small price to pay to make your Moon-landing fantasies come true.
Lego is making a 'Women of NASA' set
You'll soon have five new characters to place near your space-inspired Lego structures. The toymaker is developing a new set featuring five history-making women who made great contributions to NASA's space program. "Women of NASA" was created by MIT News editor Maia Weinstock, who submitted it to the Lego Ideas competition. Weinstock's entry garnered the 10,000 votes needed for Lego to consider manufacturing it, and the company has recently announced that it has already begun taking steps to make it a real set people can buy.
The charity that wants video game karts in every hospital
In many ways, Jonathan Watson is like other 11-year-olds. He does his homework, dreams of becoming a doctor and plays video games when he can. Depending on the day, his favorite is either Minecraft or The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. Unlike most kids his age, though, Jonathan is at the hospital every three weeks for blood transfusions -- a procedure that can take up to six hours at a time. When I visited him at Mott Children's Hospital in Ann Arbor, Michigan, he wasn't slaying dragons or building a pixelated fortress; he was replaying the opening levels of Rayman Legends on a kart that had just been wheeled in. The kart was donated by a local Eagle Scout who raised funds through the Gamers Outreach Foundation (GO), a nationwide charity that puts medical-grade gaming equipment in hospitals around the country. The "GO Kart" Jonathan was using included everything needed to play video games: a modest Samsung television, an Xbox 360 (though any console will fit) and a pair of gamepads. The kit itself is hardly revolutionary, but anyone who's schlepped their gear to a LAN party can appreciate the simplicity of this rolling, self-contained setup. At Mott and 19 other hospitals around the country, they're the most popular "toy" available. And when you're a kid with a medical condition like Watson's, it's easy to see why.
Siri's latest Easter egg lets you become 'Lego Batman'
Apple's personal assistant Siri is known for its Easter eggs and its oddball answers to questions like, "What is the meaning of life?" Now, its latest trick will help you get in touch with your inner Dark Knight.
Makeblock's Lego-like 'Neuron' teaches kids robotics and code
Makeblocks, a company known for kid-friendly robotics and DIY hovercraft-drones, is launching a new gadget-building platform called Neuron. It's like Lego meets Littlebits -- you get over 30 blocks with different functions that kids can snap together and then program to create science experiments or gadgets like an internet-connected cat feeder. The system is platform agnostic, the company says, so it can work with products like Lego and even Microsoft's Cognitive Services AI platform.
Lego launches a safe social network for kids to share their creations
If your child is a budding Lego genius yearning to show off her creative constructions to the world, then Lego has just the place for her to do it. The company behind the iconic bricks has just launched a new social network made for kids under 13. Called Lego Life, it's designed to let kids connect with a community of their peers. They can look at what other children have created and also share what they've built. Lego Life is made for tablets, with iOS and Amazon Kindle Fire versions available today in the US, UK, France and Germany.
ICYMI: Boeing's swanky new space suits and 3D-printable skin
Today on In Case You Missed It: Boeing debuted its next-generation flight suit that astronauts will be wearing aboard its Starliner CST-100 when the spacecraft takes off in 2018. They're cooler, lighter and far more fashionable than the ones US Shuttle crews had to wear into space. Plus, who doesn't want to look like Benny the blue LEGO space guy? That's not all, a team of Spanish researchers have announced that they can now "print" human skin from their prototype 3D bioprinter. Simple culture some cells, feed them into the printer and this thing will spit out functional human skin. If only this technology were around in 1990, Liam Neeson wouldn't have had to go and kill all those folks who burned him alive. And finally, we got your TL;DR right here, folks. As always, please share any interesting tech or science videos you find by using the #ICYMI hashtag on Twitter for @mskerryd.
Lego Boost teaches kids how to bring blocks to life with code
If you've ever wished your childhood Lego creations could come to life, your dreams are now closer to reality. Lego has just unveiled a subbrand called Boost that promises to do just that. The base set contains a combination of sensors, motors and a unique companion app that teaches kids how to code so that they can program their new robot friends. Lego's Mindstorms could let you do this too, but that's a decidedly more advanced system aimed at young adults. Boost, on the other hand, is designed for kids ages 7 and up. The Lego Boost base starter set is priced at $160 and will be available later this year.
Stanford students discover how to build wires like Lego
Scientists at Stanford University and the Department of Energy have developed a way to make incredibly thin wires with extraordinary properties. Using diamondoids -- the smallest possible pieces of diamond -- the researchers have been able to build electrical wires that measure just three atoms wide. Thanks to their microscopic size, these remarkably thin wires have the potential to be used to make fabric that conducts electricity without energy loss.
