Wii Sqweeze Gives You the Upper Body Strength Of An Olympic Cyclist. This Wii Sqweeze demo by InterAction Labs supposedly does for your upper body what Wii Fit does for the lower body of the 10 people who actually managed to find one. The thing is essentially two squeezable grips (exactly like the kind you can get at sports stores now) that correspond to claws and bows and other activities on screen. It’s not a real Wii game now, but just a PC demo running off a Wiimote tied via USB to a Wii. Could it be a real Wii game? Sure, but unless it’s got Nintendo’s name and advertising attached to it, we don’t think it’s going to do that well. [Exergamelab]
Yes, my friends, someone has made a bikini that vaguely resembles a classic NES controller. And suddenly that topless beach sounds a whole lot less appealing. Of course, one day women will go nude except for a pair of gloves. And in that era, we’ll be obsessed with thumb to index cleavage (making the Power Glove the de facto sexy accessory). Bonus pic:
Make sure to hit the comments for all of the inevitable Konami code jokes. [Complex via Kotaku]
Touchscreens. They’re everywhere, as if electronics makers aren’t cool unless their phones or media players have them, and soon that will be true for laptops as well. Touchscreens aren’t going to completely replace the mouse and keyboard in the next year or two, but we’re hurtling toward a future where they’re the dominant way we interact with devices. The catch is that “touchscreen” can describe a few very different technologies that all perform a similar function. Here’s a breakdown of the most popular techniques for making touchscreen magic happen—and the crazy new techniques that will succumb to your caresses in years to come.
At a basic level, they all perform the same function—sensing a disturbance in the force when your finger or stylus or whatever pointy object you’ve got touches the screen, and then extrapolating that into knowing where you’re touching it and relaying that to the software. The differences lie in how each screen detects a touch.
Resistive touchscreens are the ones you’ve probably put your greasy fingers on more than any other kind, mostly because they’re the cheapest and oldest. They’re in most touchscreen cellphones, many tablets and the Nintendo DS, to name a very few.
How it works: On the bottom you’ve got a layer of glass, and on top of that, you’ve got two more: a conductive and a resistive layer. They’ve got a sliver of space between them. And on top of that you’ve got one more layer, which is the one you touch. So, when you push down on the screen, the conductive and resistive layer touch each other, which changes the electrical current running through ‘em, and the device can tell from that where your finger or stylus is touching.
Good and bad: While resistive is a good deal cheaper to manufacture at the moment, one downside is that it’s hard to do multitouch, because of the constraints and shortcomings of a pressure-based system. Another problem is that the multiple layers of touch technology on top of the LCD block an awful lot of light—think of how much dimmer the DS’s bottom screen is than the top one. read this entry »
Now that Nintendo’s solving their Wiimote control issues, we can finally focus our intentions on superficial improvements. It’s required some major soldering, but one modder has added all sorts of LED-based tweaks to his Wiimote. The first, seen here, Skittles-izes the player indicators by swapping out the now-drab blue LEDs for those of multiple colors. Our cup of tea? Not really. But the kids will love it. The second notable mod utilizes the Wiimote’s rumble signal and maps an LED pulse to the shaking:
For those interested in actually doing this stuff to your Wiimotes, head over to Wiimotemods for their complete guide of step-by-step projects. [Wiimotemods via MAKE]
When the Wii console first came out, everyone and their mother commented on how stupid the name was. It still is to be perfectly honest, but after a couple of years we have grown more accustomed to hearing it. But imagine what it would be like if your legal name was Wii? Believe it or not, a guy named Wii Yatani has had the now famous moniker since birth, and he claims that Nintendo’s console has changed his life for the better.
“When I was growing up, I had a pretty difficult time,” he said. “I just found when I was introducing myself to people, it was a little awkward.”
No kidding.
He isn’t the first guy with the name though. An MTV Multiplayer article points out that there were several uses of the name in the past. However, as far as anyone can tell, he is the only person mentioned in the English-language media with the name. Not surprisingly, when the console first came out, all of his friends got back in touch with their inner Jr. High School student and began opening up old scars with “wee-wee” jokes and the classic “Oh, Wii, are you going to go home to play with yourself?” Hahaha…ahem. It’s a serious problem.
Despite these setbacks, Wii Yatani has grown comfortable with his unique name and its association with the popular Nintendo console. He claims that it has helped people say and spell his name correctly for the first time, not to mention the fact that it has resulted in a fair amount of notoriety. Wii’s friends have even suggested that he try and score some deal with Nintendo as a spokesman. While I doubt that Nintendo is looking for some sort of video game version of Jared to hock their products, he is still getting his 15 minutes for doing nothing—which is admirable. But here is the really amusing part—he didn’t buy a Wii until 2 months ago and he still hasn’t played it yet. Two months? What the hell, man? [MTV]
That Nintendo Wii, what will it think up next? It’s made us smarter and fitter and stronger and just so much better. Oh, and have you heard? Now it’s creating OLYMPIC GOLD MEDALISTS. Japanese swimmer Kosuke Kitajima just took the gold in the 100-meter breaststroke, and instead of thanking God or his trainers in typical fashion, he gave another performance enhancer a shout-out:
See, Mario does the breaststroke. And thus, it’s perfect mental training for envisioning the actual Olympic hall.
Yes, that’s the power of the Nintendo Wii when it’s running Sega’s Mario and Sonic at the Olympic Games. Flailing the Wiimote around in jack-off motion really can make you the athlete you’d always dreamed of being.
To Kitajima’s credit, he did say that quote above jokingly. Then again, he did say it. [Hochi Yomiuri via Kotaku]
Personally, I never really got into the whole “Lego” games… not really my thing. But, they keep pumping them out… anyway.
If you pre-order Lego Batamn from GameStop you can receive a Lego Batman character key chain (example below).
Lego Batman hits store shelves on 09/23/08
(Via GameStop)
It appears that if you pre-order your copy of Rock Band 2 for the Nintendo Wii at your local GameStop (or online), you can get your hands on this nifty t-shirt.
Rock Band 2 ships on 11/18/2008 for the Wii.
(Via GameStop)
Check out one of the newest accessories to hit… it comes from Rapala and is meant for the game “Rapala Fishing Frenzy”.
So what do you think? Personally, I think the crank handle is a bit on the large side… but for a Wiicessory… not to bad.
(Via GoNintendo)
While Nintendo has dominated both the handheld market with DS and the next-gen console race with Wii, it’s never too early to think about the future.
And according to company President Satoru Iwata, the process of working on Wii successor started the second that they were done putting the finishing touches on the console.
“The hardware team started work on the next thing as soon as they were done with their previous project, but what they think up doesn’t necessarily become a product,” Iwata told the Wall Street Journal.
“We only turn something into a product after it’s been thoroughly vetted inside the company. We’re not at a point where we can give specifics, but of course we’re working on it.”
As for the latest accessory unveiled, the Wii Motion Plus, Iwata insists that it will be wallet-friendly.
“We haven’t announced the price yet, but the cost of making the Wii Motion Plus is not that much, so I think we can make it very affordable,” he explained.