Online Chess Gets A Projector Facelift

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The game of chess, folks, has gotten yet another huge upgrade from the days of people pushing around shaped chunks of wood. You’ve seen Monster Chess, now try real-time online chess.

The picture you’re seeing above is the result of combining a projector and a webcam to display an online chessboard onto a flat tabletop. Then, the webcam I just mentioned picks up your moves and sends the information back to a central server, which updates your opponent. Your opponent’s countermove is then sent to your projected display, and the whole process repeats itself until somebody wins or a draw is declared.

Okay, so maybe it’s not quite as awesome as giant Lego models zipping around a board via remote, but it may well be the next best thing to holographic chess. And chess online really isn’t that much fun anyway–you’re just moving figures around. Now with this, you can move the actual pieces and play an actual match, even if you’re the only one in the room.