Frantz Lasome is working on an augmented reality toy concept that takes make-believe and lays it out in front of your eyes. His project lets kids use their old toys as game pieces and controls in an virtual world. Players battle it out, assigning weapon functions to their real world toys, and can watch the virtual action through special glasses. Though it seems like a fantastic toy, you have to wonder how immersion in an augmented world will effect kid’s developing minds.
Augmented Reality Toys (Work in progress) from Frantz Lasorne on Vimeo.
Like the “is Google making us stupid argument”, will too much of this kind of pre-planned imaginary world stunt creativity, or will it unlock new ways of thinking?
[via Yanko Design]
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Well, this would be a great way of training future soldiers. But for something more socially useful, could we please get away from boys with guns?
March 16th, 2009 at 8:48 pm
Cool idea but it sort of defeats the whole purpose of “imagination.” Why bother picturing something in your minds eye when your computer goggles will just show it to you? It seems like if anything, toys like this (again, VERY cool) could potentially decrease creativity. It’s like seeing the movie instead of reading the book.
And in response to the above comment, Umberto Eco makes a great argument about why boys SHOULD play with guns in his short essay “Letter to My Son.”
March 17th, 2009 at 8:59 am