Wii remote power!!

how good are the wii remotes?

ive also seen them wired up to 360's for decent control for fps

and the acceleromater for measuring acceleration in your car;

im sure theres a million and one other uses too

awesome

Damn that's cool

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0awjPUkBXOU

Same guy using the Wii Remote to track your fingers so you could control something Minority Report style.

I used the Wiimote on my PC to navigate Google Earth. It's ok but a bit clumsy ...

Also, Wiimote + horse:

http://wiimotehorse.tumblr.com/

how does it interface with your computer?
do you need an IR interface or something

Bluetooth

how do i activate bluetooth on my computer? or find out if i got it

Wow that's cool!

Jabroney - some laptops come with it, but you can get a bluetooth USB stick thing that will enable bluetooth on your PC.

will be under network adaptors in the device manager

Nerd alert!

Ok, this tops all the others. Its the same guy using the Wii remote to track the position of your head and create a 3d VR display. So freaking awesome!

Holy f***ing s*** that's awesome. That would be cool for something like Time Crisis and being able to physically duck and hide behind objects and not be seen.

Like that guy says, "I wanna see some games!"

That's fkn nuts. Just goes to show how much more potential there is!

its f***ing awesome

now that is cool, you could make some awesome games with that and youd get to wear some awesome glasses at the same time.

Omfg, words can't describe how cool that is.

Nerd alert!

Says the person posting on the Queensland Gamers League forums..... :P

This guy needs to stop teaching at uni and get employed by Nintendo ...

^ I agree.

That's farking awesome

lol that is f***in cool.

Billion dorrah game companies and some geek takes things to the next level.

$50 for the wii headset come mid next year

did he have to write some program to decipher the wii remote's signal, or is it something relatively simple to do like connecting a mouse ?

Hella cool. What a mad dude.

Johnny is a genius, no doubt about it. This is one of the most exciting bits of innovation I've seen in years because its accessible to the mass's so readily.

did he have to write some program to decipher the wii remote's signal, or is it something relatively simple to do like connecting a mouse ?

I think it's actually a PC program, he's just connected the Wii remote to his computer via bluetooth.

And that is the coolest Wii remote mod I've ever seen. That bloke has done a few other cool ones, but this one takes the cake. Unbelievable.

props first to nintendo for coming up with the idea, but johnny, you get super props for pushing nintendo to new levels

lets see some games!!!

Holy coolness that would be awesome, opens up the possibilities of whats to come in gaming.

BRING ON THE GAMES!@#$

that head tracking is awsome

just posting to say how awesome that is...

it reminds me of the whole nintendo ON video leak before the Wii was announced..

Except less lame.

Umm, head tracking? .. that is woah.

If Nintendo can get some games on shelves within a year or two utilising that then it could pretty much end the console wars for this gen unless ms or sony can compete.

Also, he is not 100% right about multiplayer, it would just require a split screen and seperate tracking for each player so that you could get your own viewport.

Imagine 4-player Goldeneye with head tracking on a bigarse projector?!

Yeah, the Wii would pretty much be the absolute king of console FPS.

Wow, he has some really cool stuff on his site.

Also, he is not 100% right about multiplayer, it would just require a split screen and seperate tracking for each player so that you could get your own viewport.

deminishing the size and res of the screen would deminish the effect.

also, stop thinking about the impact on console games and start thinking about the possibilites for PC games. PCs are where the closest possibilites lay. That is where the early adopters of new tech are, the grunty hardware is, and the FPS games currently exist that this kind of tech could be applied to.

@Hogfather

The reason it won't work for multiplayer is the wii-motes cannot distinguish between different LED sources. Therefore, if two people were playing at once, it wouldn't be able to tell which two sources are one person and which two sources are the other person, making the whole system useless.

However, the multiplayer argument would be pretty null and void if Nintendo would get their act together with online multiplayer.

also, stop thinking about the impact on console games and start thinking about the possibilites for PC games. PCs are where the closest possibilites lay. That is where the early adopters of new tech are, the grunty hardware is, and the FPS games currently exist that this kind of tech could be applied to.

s***, thats an awesome point... all it would take is the devs of that open source FPS engine to add support in and boom.

Damn, somebody get on that...

also, stop thinking about the impact on console games and start thinking about the possibilites for PC games. PCs are where the closest possibilites lay. That is where the early adopters of new tech are, the grunty hardware is, and the FPS games currently exist that this kind of tech could be applied to.

The innovation is coming from console hardware. Its time for the PC guys to stop being so very staid and evolutionary and remember what innovation is all about. When was the last time we saw something truly innovative and fresh from the PC arena?

Nintendo made a HUGE gamble with putting all of their eggs into the innovation basket. Without the innovative control scheme the Wii is a very third-rate nect gen console.

Don't bank on seeing anything in the PC arena for this. The legal implications of using the Wii remote commercially on a PC would crush the idea in most development houses. And without the Wii remote which Nintendo has invested a brazillion dorras developing, its a long long way to market for PCs.

last edited by Hogfather at 10:40:31 24/Dec/07

Ahhh, open source.. That'll fix that gap.

Haha Open Source will fix everything !

take their remote control, burn the rest imo

^

That's the problem in a nutshell. Nintendo could quite rightly argue that the Wii controller is at least half the 'system' that is the Wii. Actually probably a lot more, the entire point of the Wii is its control schema. Unlicensed use of the controller for commercial gain would no doubt result in a whole world of legal hurting.

So in order for someone other than Ninetendo (or an authorised licensee) to do all the cool things that we are seeing from the controller they'd need to design & build their own hardware. This results in exposure to risk of patent infringement. If you thought the rumble pack legal mess was bad imagine if someone duped the Wiimote ...

Its possible that Nintendo would license developers to make use of the Wii controller for PC, but I think that its more likely to be a case of protectionism. It makes much more sense for Nintendo to rigorously protect their technology and expand on it widely for Wii II.

The fact that the remote and sensor-bar are being used in reverse in the head tracking would be enough to create a new patent.

Wii patent: http://appft1.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO2&Sect2=HITOFF&p=1&u=/netahtml/PTO/search-bool.html&r=1&f=G&l=50&co1=AND&d=PG01&s1=20070049374&OS=20070049374&RS=20070049374

Wii homebrew (interfacing Wiimote with other devices)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wii_homebrew

Nintendo has been sued over the Wiimote:
http://www.news.com/Is-the-Wiimote-a-patent-violator/2100-1043_3-6142567.html

And Sony has created it's own remote+sensorbar system:
http://www.engadget.com/2006/12/07/sony-patents-its-own-version-of-the-wiimote-and-sensor-bar/

last edited by Idol at 13:47:48 24/Dec/07

man that is waaaay cool

The innovation is coming from console hardware.

Maybe for the original device, but the innovation we are seeing here is new ways of using existing technology. Not creating new devices.

The legal implications of using the Wii remote commercially on a PC would crush the idea in most development houses.

How so? All they need is to say requires Wii Remote. Nothing more. Since the wii Remote is Nintendo's and is already covered by patents and the user buys the Wii Remote themselves, which is available seperately, how is anyone's patents or rights infringed?

Nothing in my documentation that came with my Wii Remotes says anything about the device being able to be used soley with a Nintendo Wii.

This is the abstract from the Patent that they think Nintendo's Wii Remote violates.

A device particularly for use with a computer comprises a housing for location at least partly between two fingers of a user's hand and an electronic circuit mounted on a board within the housing. The circuit includes a switch responsive to pressure selectively to open and close an electronic circuit, and conductive elements arranged on the board mounting the electronic circuit. A first control element is mounted with the housing and responsive to finger pressure such that pressure applied to the first control element causes the element to operate the switch. The first control element is movable with respect to a hinge such that finger action acts to cause the control element to swivel as a trigger about the hinge and thereby interact with the switch. The second control element includes a flexible material mounted such that pressure applied to the flexible material in different directions and positions acts to change the electrical relationship between the conductive elements on the board and thereby vary an output signal from the electronic circuit. The rear portion of the housing includes a receptacle for receiving removable battery means for powering the electronic circuit. There is an infra-red output signal transmitted to a receiver for operating the computer. The first control element is located substantially below the second control element, and the first control element being in a bottom face of the housing.

First off, the patent seems to describe every remote control in my house with the addition of a bottom facing button, so is stupid. The whole patent system in america is about creating vague patents and sitting on them until someone makes something great that falls under your vague patent then sueing them for royalties.

Furthermore since the Wii Remote picks up an infrared signal, not transmits one it would be excluded from this abstract.

last edited by ara at 14:28:32 24/Dec/07

Dunno ara; but it just seems ripe somehow for clobbering by Nintendo. Remember that 80% (random number) of winning court cases isn't justification its money, and Nintendo has lots of that. THey could destroy any small to medium house that looked into making money off the Wii remote just by weight of dollars (much like Vivendi did with BNetD).

Relying on an uninvolved (and likely quite antagonistic) third party for the hardware end of a game solution also seems a bit thin somehow from a business perspective.

The only reason that this is being developed on a PC rather than for the console directly is that the Wii is still not cracked for homebrew (which is bloody annoying). Hopefully Nintendo will pull their collective heads out of their arses on that score and let guys like Johnny Lee do his thing.

Have to ask though, if the PC is where its at for innovation, why hasn't this sort of thing already been done? All I've seen out of the PC Games arena is shinier and prettier gfx and s***loads of evolutionary development. Has anything actually innovative been done in the PC arena for the past ten years?

Dunno ara; but it just seems ripe somehow for clobbering by Nintendo. Remember that 80% (random number) of winning court cases isn't justification its money, and Nintendo has lots of that. THey could destroy any small to medium house that looked into making money off the Wii remote just by weight of dollars (much like Vivendi did with BNetD).

There's heaps of prior art for interacting with technology, including games, with mote like devices; including everything that Nintendo has done. Also, Nintendo don't even own all of the current technology, or for that matter even the best technology. Really, Nintendo got some really old technology, packaged it and released it as a cheap console.

Have to ask though, if the PC is where its at for innovation, why hasn't this sort of thing already been done? All I've seen out of the PC Games arena is shinier and prettier gfx and s***loads of evolutionary development. Has anything actually innovative been done in the PC arena for the past ten years?

The technology has existed on PC for more than 20 years. f***, that kind of stuff is undergraduate level stuff. The main problem has been who wants to develop for technology that nobody owns yet.

The technology has existed on PC for more than 20 years.

1987 ... exagerate much ?

Nintendo wins.

Has anything actually innovative been done in the PC arena for the past ten years?

See: Internet

Too put my previous comment into perspective.
VGA only came out in 87.
Soundblaster wasn't released until 88.
The 486 didn't appear until 89, along with 16 colour SVGA
PCI didn't appear until 1990 along with Windows 3.1

Wolf3d ... which wasn't really 3d was 92
Doom which was almost 3d was 93
Quake arguably the first true 3d game was 96 ...

So a view point 3d perspective view of even dots was probably not even a reality until 10 years ago graphically

Infra-red and CCD's ? .. yeah sure they existed, but they weren't being interfaced with PCs very often.

yeah sure they existed, but they weren't being interfaced with PCs very often.

But you're saying they were? Not much, but it was done....?

1987 ... exagerate much ?

The initial work on Information Environments, Pervasive, Peripheral and Ubiquitous Computing and non-standard computer-machine interaction had been well and truly established by 1987.

Sure, the interaction model of devices 20 years ago where not as crisp, or as seriously cool looking, as the Wii mote is, but they where being developed in research centres.

## Edit: just to put it into perspective, in academia, the mouse was invented in 1968. It's not like computing was was brand spanking new in 1987.

last edited by typo at 10:17:09 25/Dec/07