Johnny Chung’s amazing Wii hacks have been around for a while, in fact, some of the youTube videos demoing how they have been done have been viewed more than 3 million times. Although I had some idea of the Wiimote’s DIY capabilities, my first proper introduction was Rahle Dusheiko from Pixel Project’s talk at the inaugural Cape Town Pecha Kucha night. Pixel Project had done some interesting interactive installation work for Liliesleaf Museum in Johannesburg using the Wiimote. See the video here.
Still it wasn’t till I saw Johnny Chung’s talk at TED that I realized just how easy it can be, and just how many possible applications there could be for Wiimote hacking. Here is the video:
I’m really excited about the possibilities for my students exploring multitouch and gestural interfaces with the Wiimote. Usually its only the big institutions like the MIT media lab that can offer the facilities for students to explore these new fontiers in Human Computer Interaction. In Particular I’d like to investigate using the Wiimote to control flash-based interfaces.
Here are his videos:Tracking Your Fingers with the Wiimote
Low-Cost Multi-point Interactive Whiteboards Using the Wiimote
Head Tracking for Desktop VR Displays using the Wii Remote Really impressive.
All of these hacks are detailed on Johnny Chung’s site.