Geek News

Hot Wheels may be known for little die-cast cars, but celebrating its 50th birthday this year doesn't mean it's stuck in the past. The brand's already given us AI-controlled racers and cars on virtual courses , but the one thing that's gone largely untouched is its signature plastic track. This year, Hot Wheels mixes things up with Augmoto, which takes the classic racing set and throws augmented reality on top of it. Now, road hazards and collisions can now look as cool as they do in your head, and each race becomes a lot more strategic. On a standard Hot Wheels track, cars are placed in a mechanical launcher and shot onto the track to zoom around until they either reach the end or just run out of kinetic energy. There's not a lot of skill or strategy involved in winning a race; it ultimately it comes down to luck. Products like Hot Wheels AI and Mindracers tried to rectify this with virtual hazards to trip up your opponent, and Augmoto expands on that idea w...

Children love to role play, whether it's pretending to cook in a toy kitchen or swinging plastic swords at each other in the backyard. But lately, more than just about anything else, kids want to be superheroes. To help, toy companies like Hasbro sell costumes, weapons and other props so kids can live out their Captain America and Iron Man fantasies . But a plastic shield will only take you so far: It can't give you super strength or speed, and you certainly can't throw it at bad guys and have it return to your hands afterward. But Iron Man's a little different, since so much of his power is tied up in the suit. His armor enables him to fly, blast enemies and view the world through its informative heads-up display . The latter element is what Hasbro's new Hero Vision Iron Man AR helmet aims to imitate, using a phone to display its own custom HUD so kids can feel like they're really wearing the armored Avenger's suit. Disappointingly, the AR app isn'...