Microsoft's Project Zanzibar smart mat can bring toys, more into the digital world

Microsoft has long been looking at ways to alloy our digital and concrete worlds, with the most obvious fruit of those efforts being HoloLens and mixed reality. Today, withal, Microsoft's research arm took the wraps off of its latest effort, a concrete, rollable mat chosen Project Zanzibar.

At its most basic level, Project Zanzibar is a physical mat that lets you interface with a computer or tablet through a mix of well-nigh field communication and impact. This opens up a multifariousness of scenarios in which y'all can utilize different objects and touch to play games or bring concrete toys and into the digital world.

Microsoft envisions a number of different ways in which Project Zanzibar could exist used, with a heavy accent on giving children a way to bring their toys to life. Kids could move toys around on the mat'southward surface while a digital version at the aforementioned time. Extending this further, the footage could exist captured to make a short movie.

Other potential scenarios involve games, including placing physical cards on the mat to bring them into a digital card game. If y'all grew up playing Pokémon or Yu-Gi-Oh, then you lot can imagine how exciting it would be to come across the static monsters on your cards come to life equally you play them. In a fashion, Projection Zanzibar feels similar to what Nintendo has done with its Amiibo figures, which use NFC to unlock characters and other perks in games, but with far more than interactivity thank you to the mat'south ability to sense the position of objects and translate that to a game or action.

Of form, in that location's an educational element to this besides. The Project Zanzibar team took inspiration from the Montessori Method, which emphasizes physical activity's role in instruction kids bookish concepts, in devising exercises for kids. "For instance, the Letter Plates Montessori exercise provides feedback every bit words are formed and tactile letter-shapes are traced," Microsoft says. "Newspaper overlays on the Project Zanzibar mat do not interfere with functionality and provide additional context to the exercise."

Projection Zanzibar certainly looks interesting, and information technology could show potential not only for interesting new games but in the classroom as well. As for whether the epitome will ever end up equally a aircraft product, that'due south upwards in the air. All the same, as ZDNet reports, Microsoft is set to reveal more almost the project at the ACM CHI Conference in Montreal later on in April.

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