gHacks technology news » wiimote http://www.ghacks.net A technology blog covering software, mobile phones, gadgets, security, the Internet and other relevant areas. Tue, 24 Nov 2009 22:02:10 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.6 en hourly 1 Even Researchers have fun with the Wiimote http://www.ghacks.net/2008/04/28/even-researchers-have-fun-with-the-wiimote/ http://www.ghacks.net/2008/04/28/even-researchers-have-fun-with-the-wiimote/#comments Mon, 28 Apr 2008 21:35:40 +0000 Martin http://www.ghacks.net/?p=3955 I’m often amazed by the videos that are offered at the TED (which stands for Technology, Entertainment, Design) website. Today I saw a very interesting demonstration by researcher Johnny Lee who was using the Wiimote, that is a controller for the Nintendo Wii gaming system, to produce remarkable applications. The five minute video is showing two distinct projects that utilize the Wiimote to its fullest.

The first project demonstrated a digital whiteboard, something that sells for several thousand Dollars, emulated by the Wiimote and additional hardware that do not cost more than $10. The software used in the demonstration can be downloaded from the researchers website and it actually has been downloaded about 500.000 times.

The other project demonstrated a head mounted 3d- viewer. This system was also using the Wiimote and some additional hardware. He mentioned that this technique will be included in a game by Electronic Arts as an Easter Egg.

As of September 2007, Nintendo has sold over 13 million Wii game consoles. This significantly exceeds the number of Tablet PCs in use today according to even the most generous estimates of Tablet PC sales. This makes the Wii Remote one of the most common computer input devices in the world. It also happens to be one of the most sophisticated. It contains a 1024×768 infrared camera with built-in hardware blob tracking of up to 4 points at 100Hz. This significantly out performs any PC “webcam” available today. It also contains a +/-3g 8-bit 3-axis accelerometer also operating at 100Hz and an expandsion port for even more capability. These projects are an effort to explore and demonstrate applications that the millions of Wii Remotes in world readily support.

The homepage of Johnny Lee contains another video that is demonstrating how it is possible to track fingers with the Wiimote.

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]]> http://www.ghacks.net/2008/04/28/even-researchers-have-fun-with-the-wiimote/feed/ 3 Wiimote 3D Widget Desktop http://www.ghacks.net/2007/10/04/wiimote-3d-widget-desktop/ http://www.ghacks.net/2007/10/04/wiimote-3d-widget-desktop/#comments Thu, 04 Oct 2007 17:30:37 +0000 Martin http://www.ghacks.net/2007/10/04/wiimote-3d-widget-desktop/ I knew we were going to see more PC and Wiimote mashups this year. After being able to play several shooters on the pc with the remote it was only a matter of time until someone would introduce applications or even a complete user interface utilizing the Wiimote.

Dan McWeeney and Eddie Herrmann, the winners of last years SAP TechEd ‘06 DemoJam, were not allowed to compete again this year but were asked to make a short presentation at the 07 show. They came up with this rather crazy idea to use the Wiimote, or better two Wiimotes in conjunction, to work on the screen and replace the mouse.

You can watch a short demonstration of the new technique in the video that I did embed below. The demonstration starts around minute 2.

via Podtech

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]]> http://www.ghacks.net/2007/10/04/wiimote-3d-widget-desktop/feed/ 1 Wiimote + Games + PC = Ultimate Fun http://www.ghacks.net/2007/04/12/wiimote-games-pc-ultimate-fun/ http://www.ghacks.net/2007/04/12/wiimote-games-pc-ultimate-fun/#comments Thu, 12 Apr 2007 12:37:02 +0000 Martin http://www.ghacks.net/2007/04/12/wiimote-games-pc-ultimate-fun/ If you thought it would be fun to play games on the Nintendo Wii you should see the following Youtube videos to get an impression of what I consider ultimate fun. Developers have already been able to use basic applications like Google Earth in conjunction with the Wiimote and they finally managed to get some games working as well. All you need is a Wiimote, a Pc that has Bluetooth, some games that are supported and of course the software GlovePie.

This may sound much for now, take a look at some of the videos that I collected to convince you that this is the ultimate thing for now. You can expect to see the following games played using a Wiimote plus Nunchuck: Halflife 2, House of the Dead III, Panzer Dragoon and Rez. It looks good, plays fine and could be an option for pc game makers as well. Why not add Wiimote support to games ?

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]]> http://www.ghacks.net/2007/04/12/wiimote-games-pc-ultimate-fun/feed/ 3 Use your Wiimote in Windows http://www.ghacks.net/2006/12/27/use-your-wiimote-in-windows/ http://www.ghacks.net/2006/12/27/use-your-wiimote-in-windows/#comments Wed, 27 Dec 2006 06:37:57 +0000 Martin http://www.ghacks.net/2006/12/27/use-your-wiimote-in-windows/ I bought a Nintendo Wii when it came out. As you might know you do not use gamepads to play the games but the so called Wiimote which looks very much like a tv remote control and uses bluetooth to communicate with the core system. Carl Kenner developed the software Glove Pie which can be used to control games and applications with gestures, speech and other input devices.

Carl added Wiimote support to Glove (Glove Programmable Input Emulator) Pie which makes it possible to use the Wiimote and the Nunchuck to control applications in Windows. You need to have bluetooth enabled to be able to communicate with the Wiimote and Nunchuck though. Just download and start the Glove Pie software. After that you could add scripts to support the devices.

I found a forum post that had some good examples for scripts that you could use to use the buttons of the Wii devices for example.

Up = Wiimote.Up
Down = Wiimote.Down
Left = Wiimote.Left
Right = Wiimote.Right
A = Wiimote.A
B = Wiimote.B
One = Wiimote.One
Two = Wiimote.Two
Home = Wiimote.Home
Minus = Wiimote.Minus
Equals = Wiimote.Plus

Some scripts for the Glove Pie can be found at Joseph Coulstons website. The two scripts that he offers make it possible to use the Wiimote with Google Earth and one script to display the battery level of the Wiimote.

It is quite possible that we will soon witness some games that work specifically with the Wiimote connected to your computer.

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