A desktop application going by the name Screentendo allows you to turn a portion of the screen into a Super Mario Bros. style screen. The window that overlays what you want the basis of the level to be will change some select things into bricks and you will be able to control your very own Mario.
The idea and development of the app came from software engineer Aaron Randall who recently showed us what his app can do via a post to his own YouTube page. The video shows him converting the Google logo into bricks and jumping around as Mario:
On his blog Randall explains how the application works on his blog and offers the source code for full viewing. In brief he explains:
“When Screentendo is launched, a semi-transparent window appears which can be moved and resized over other application windows. After placing the Screentendo window over an area of the screen, clicking inside the window will cause the app to render a game level based on the content beneath it.
There are two basic steps to Screentendo; image processing to determine the structure of the target region, and the level generation.”
The code is available at GitHub now.
Sources: aaronrandal, IGN, Polygon.