A new startup company has created an interesting way to bring real play into the virtual world with an iPad game integrated with real-world toys.
Tangible Play, a new start-up company, is aiming to bring the digital and the real world experiences together for kids. With the rapid growth of technology, children are exposed to electronic gadgets like tablets, smartphones and PCs at a tender age. While it has its own benefits, kids are becoming more connected to the virtual toys over the real-world ones, choosing Flappy Birds and Candy Crush over the likes of Scrabble and puzzles.
Tangible Play, on the other hand, is looking to reunite the kids with the real toys without disconnecting them from their technological interests. The startup created three game sets and an iPad app collectively known as Osmo for kids to connect better with physical toys in new ways.
The games are not entirely new to kids, as these are familiar games like Scrabble Tangram and Cut the Rope but brought to them in a refreshing manner.
"When you're glued to the screen, you completely disconnect from things around you," Pramod Sharma, cofounder and CEO of Tangible Play, told Mashable. "This is an example of technology that doesn't do justice to the human aspect of technology. It should be enriching our lives."
The games use a technology called as "Reflective Artificial Intelligence."Osmo includes an iPad stand to keep the tablet standing at 90 degrees along with a plastic clip that sits on top of the front camera to direct the gaze of the camera to the surface where the game is played. The camera captures the image of the toys in real time and reflects those actions on the iPad screen. It basically mimics your actions on the tablet screen.
The three games that are included in the Osmo hardware kit are Newton, Words and Tangram. Newton is a drawing app that can also be used to create obstacles to play a game as shown in the video below. As for Words, it resembles Scrabble and lets two teams compete to guess the word of the picture on the screen. Finally, Tangram as the name suggests is an old fashion Tangram puzzle game played using flat shapes.
Tangible Play's Osmo is not fully ready for its release, as it is being crowd-funded with sets being available for pre-order at $49. The company hopes to raise $50,000 through its campaign before commercially releasing the product for a retail price of $99. Shipping for the pre-ordered units will start in fall.
Watch the embedded video below to see how Osmo works.
