Lately I’ve been checking out some of the “Recommended” blogs that Google Reader offers based on your RSS feeds, and one that I’ve started following as a result is called “Blag Hag”.
Yesterday she posted about bringing her Nintendo Wii to a party, but leaving behind the sensor bar that the Wiimote game controllers need to interact with the console. You should read her post to discover how she came up with a very creative workaround.
Looks like it’s Fun And Games Day here at BKO today.
Let’s get the important stuff out of the way first: how long would YOU last chained to a bunk bed with a velociraptor? My score is 54 seconds, but I think I would have scored better if I had learned a few choke holds in my younger days.
Here’s a must-have toy: an RC race car that has a wireless camera built into the windshield so that you can experience the first-hand point-of-view of the car via a par of VR goggles. Here’s the demo video to show you what the experience is like:
Even though DVD sales have levelled off, it doesn’t look like the format is in any danger of dying out too soon. Nevertheless, this seemed like a clever niche product that should attract some people: full-length movies on a USB flash drive. The original “Ghostbusters” movie will be the first traditional Hollywood film released on USB flash media, according to this tech news website. Granted, “Ghostbusters” isn’t exactly a hot new release, but it was definitely a huge film in its day and has a lot of residual popularity. There are probably a gazillion similar older titles that could find some new sales by being marketed on USB sticks. The viewer can copy the film to their computer’s hard drive, but there’s DRM built into this (of course) that requires you to have the stick plugged in when you want to watch it. I can see this being very popular with business travelers who like to watch movies on their laptops while flying. And there’s also enough room left on the stick to load up some music, photos or other files, so it’s a bit more versatile than a pre-recorded DVD. The only thing that doesn’t work is the price point: £29.99 in the UK, which is well over $60. It needs to price out around $10, because these days you can buy a blank USB flash drive for about ten bucks and load your own movies and such, and it’s easy to find older movies in DVD bargain bins for $9.99.
Everybody seems to agree that the thing that separates the Wii video game console from the rest of the consoles on the market is the motion-sensitive game controller that makes you feel like you’re part of the game. We have been known to work up a bit of a sweat around here getting a little too intense swinging the remote when playing Wii baseball, and I swear I strained my wrist playing Wii bowling. But the haptic controller is sheer genius — the accelerometer in the iPhone is also turning into a platform for making fun games for that device as well. So why not extend the idea and make motion-controlled TV remotes? Instead of pressing the channel button, you just flick your wrist to flip through the 500 channels on your cable system, raise or lower volume, and so on. Sadly, this isn’t a real product yet, just a concept project from a company that has a whole bunch of cool ideas for digital media interaction.
I *HATE* most remote controls. They are completely non-intuitive, have no standard UI scheme from one to the next, and can be infuriating to try to use if you need to control more than one device with them. Even the TiVo remote, which my former cow-orkers at IDEO designed and is generally recognized as one of the best remotes ever, suffers from “find-the-right-button” issues.
This designer has come up with a unique answer to the problem (via) — a remote control with one button for every single channel (provided you only have 100 channels). It’s almost two feet long, so it does have the advantage of being really hard to lose.
He’s also designed some more conventional remotes, which have the usual issues incorporated into their otherwise swoopy designs.
I think a far better idea for remote controls is to have them function like the Wiimote: just a few buttons for selecting items and a navigable mouse cursor on the screen to select choices from menus. It would also help if electronics makers wouldn’t try to cram too many features into their devices.
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