The Gadget Helpline‘s REEL TO REAL is a new regular feature to the blog, aimed at tech and film fanatics, which will reveal how the sci-fi and futuristic gadgets we see on screen in movies and television are making their way into real-life. Take a seat, grab your popcorn and enjoy the show!
In our first screening, we’ll be having a bit of fun and checking out CheckARz – a new Augmented Reality app game unveiled at the London Toy Fair that bears more than a passing resemblance to the holographic battle chess as seen in Star Wars: A New Hope and delivers it right to our 21st century table top!
We’ve given a mention to CheckARz creator App Toyz before. They’re the company that made our Christmas Gadget Gift Guide with the AppBlaster gun and now they’re back and working with wares from chip maker Qualcomm to once again benefit with some very cool use of AR – the technology that allows superimposed graphics to be layered onto real-time video capture.
The game board itself looks a little uninspiring and just like the same game of chess or checkers we have tucked away safely under a coat of dust at our Tattooine farm house. But hold an Apple iPad over the board and activate the dedicated app and the boring old flat round disks transform on screen, becoming lively interactive characters, just like the alien sprites of Dejarik – the chess-like game as toyed with by C3PO and Chewbacca in the original Star Wars movie. One of the animated figures in the Toy Fair demo even looks a lot like the fondly remembered Saga character referred to as Hammerhead.
Definitely plenty of Star Wars influences throughout with this one and we’d hope someday soon the obvious happens and some kind of licencing deal be struck meaning the Dejarik table we saw on screen becomes a reality. For now we have CheckARz, which is unfortunately not yet designed for the more reasonably priced Android tablets, but is set for launch in September 2012 for iPad – Just don’t play this one with a Wookiee, unless you prefer your arms out of their sockets!
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Video Source: Pocket-Lint