Secrets of the Wii

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From today’s New York Times…

The controllers communicate with the Wii console, a $250 box no larger than a child’s lunchbox, with the wireless technology known as Bluetooth. It is the means commonly used to link cellphones with their wireless headsets. The Wii remote also uses infrared, the same technology that links television sets with their remote controllers, to track where the controller is pointed.

In this case, a sort of crude camera — an image sensor — in the forward tip of the remote (the primary controller) detects tiny light-emitting diodes in a “sensor bar” that must be set on or very near a television plugged into the Wii. This system helps players use the remote to point accurately at specific things on the screen, like the virtual buttons to begin or end a game, or aim a weapon in a game.

Actions like pressing the buttons on screen or firing a weapon are conveyed between Bluetooth chips in the remote and in the console. The remote also contains a rumble pack, a component that vibrates to varying intensities based on information the console draws from the game’s programming and then passes to the controller.

But the controller’s most-talked-about feature is the capacity to track its own relative motion. This enables players to do things like steer a car by twisting the remote in the air or moving a game character by tilting the remote down or up.“

This represents a fabulous example of the consumerization of MEMS,” the tiny devices known as micro-electro-mechanical systems, said Benedetto Vigna, general manager of the MEMS unit at STMicroelectronics, a leading maker of the accelerometers embedded in the controllers. (Nintendo itself declined to talk about the controllers’ inner workings.)

He said the motion sensors, using the technology that activates vehicle air bags, can accurately sense three axes of acceleration: up and down, left to right, and forward and backward.

This is mostly achieved within the MEMS, micron-size machines that depend on submicroscopic structures carved into the silicon. For example, one structure moves like a tiny diving board, stimulated by the actions of the game players.

The structures are enveloped in an electrical field, Mr. Vigna said. When the MEMS elements are moved, the electrical field changes and the MEMS chip is sensitive enough to detect the changes. These accelerometers are so sensitive, Mr. Vigna said, because electrons — those subatomic particles that whirl around the nucleus of atoms like a video game in the making — can sense the subtle atomic-level movement of the silicon structures.

What’s amazing about the Will controller, is the elegance with which all this complicated stuff has been implemented and packaged. No wonder people are queueing up to buy it.

After Google Earth — what?

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Why Google Galaxy of course…

Google is extending its reach to the stars in an agreement with Nasa that will allow it to present web visualisations of the US space agency’s data on the universe. Nasa’s Ames Research Center in Silicon Valley on Monday announced a “Space Act Agreement” with Google that would include collaboration on large-scale data management and massively distributed computing as well as focusing on making the most useful of Nasa’s information available over the internet.

The agreement follows Google’s decision last year to build a 1m square foot campus in a science park linked to the research centre.There are plans for real-time weather visualisation and forecasting, high-resolution 3-D maps of the moon and Mars and real-time tracking of the International Space Station and the space shuttle.

Google Earth, the software programme that maps the planet, will incorporate Nasa data into future releases.“This agreement between Nasa and Google will soon allow every American to experience a virtual flight over the surface of the moon or through the canyons of Mars,” said Michael Griffin, Nasa administrator…

Hmmm….I’ve always wanted to go to Mars.

The Chatham House verdict

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From the summary of the Chatham House report on Blair’s premiership:

As Tony Blair approaches the tenth anniversary of his election victory, and his final year in power, this paper assesses the impact of these, and other, events and concludes that a more nuanced relationship with the United States will be a requirement for Blair’s successor.

  • Although Tony Blair did not express much interest in foreign policy before becoming prime minister, in Labour’s first term it must be judged a qualified success. A key feature was Blair’s ability to demonstrate Britain’s European credentials while forging a close working relationship with President Clinton.
  • The post-9/11 decision to invade Iraq was a terrible mistake and the current débâcle will have policy repercussions for many years to come.
  • The root failure of Tony Blair’s foreign policy has been its inability to influence the Bush administration in any significant way despite the sacrifice – military, political and financial – that the United Kingdom has made.

    • Tony Blair’s successor(s) will not be able to offer unconditional support for US initiatives in foreign policy and a rebalancing of the UK’s foreign policy between the US and Europe will have to take place.

    Full report here.

    Going OTT

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    Ye Gods! Time Magazine has finally lost its marbles. This week’s Cover Story is about who is TIME’s ‘Person of the Year’. It begins:

    You — Yes, You — Are TIME’s Person of the Year

    and goes downhill from there. Sample:

    But look at 2006 through a different lens and you’ll see another story, one that isn’t about conflict or great men. It’s a story about community and collaboration on a scale never seen before. It’s about the cosmic compendium of knowledge Wikipedia and the million-channel people’s network YouTube and the online metropolis MySpace. It’s about the many wresting power from the few and helping one another for nothing and how that will not only change the world, but also change the way the world changes.

    The tool that makes this possible is the World Wide Web. Not the Web that Tim Berners-Lee hacked together (15 years ago, according to Wikipedia) as a way for scientists to share research. It’s not even the overhyped dotcom Web of the late 1990s. The new Web is a very different thing. It’s a tool for bringing together the small contributions of millions of people and making them matter. Silicon Valley consultants call it Web 2.0, as if it were a new version of some old software. But it’s really a revolution.

    And we are so ready for it. We’re ready to balance our diet of predigested news with raw feeds from Baghdad and Boston and Beijing. You can learn more about how Americans live just by looking at the backgrounds of YouTube videos—those rumpled bedrooms and toy-strewn basement rec rooms—than you could from 1,000 hours of network television.

    And we didn’t just watch, we also worked. Like crazy. We made Facebook profiles and Second Life avatars and reviewed books at Amazon and recorded podcasts. We blogged about our candidates losing and wrote songs about getting dumped. We camcordered bombing runs and built open-source software.

    America loves its solitary geniuses—its Einsteins, its Edisons, its Jobses—but those lonely dreamers may have to learn to play with others. Car companies are running open design contests. Reuters is carrying blog postings alongside its regular news feed. Microsoft is working overtime to fend off user-created Linux. We’re looking at an explosion of productivity and innovation, and it’s just getting started, as millions of minds that would otherwise have drowned in obscurity get backhauled into the global intellectual economy.

    Who are these people? Seriously, who actually sits down after a long day at work and says, I’m not going to watch Lost tonight. I’m going to turn on my computer and make a movie starring my pet iguana? I’m going to mash up 50 Cent’s vocals with Queen’s instrumentals? I’m going to blog about my state of mind or the state of the nation or the steak-frites at the new bistro down the street? Who has that time and that energy and that passion?

    The answer is, you do. And for seizing the reins of the global media, for founding and framing the new digital democracy, for working for nothing and beating the pros at their own game, TIME’s Person of the Year for 2006 is you.

    There’s something especially nauseating about watching an old-media dinosaur sucking up to the denizens of the new ecosystem.

    Computers in the Movies

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    How many times have you groaned at the ludicrous ways in which computers are portrayed in movies? Jakob Nielsen has had the great idea of doing an analysis of some of the biggest howlers.

    Here’s a condensed version…

    1. The Hero Can Immediately Use Any UI

    Break into a company — possibly in a foreign country or on an alien planet — and step up to the computer. How long does it take you to figure out the UI and use the new applications for the first time? Less than a minute if you’re a movie star.

    The fact that all user interfaces are walk-up-and-use is probably the single most unrealistic aspect of how movies depict computers. In reality, we know all too well that even the smartest users have plenty of problems using even the best designs, let alone the degraded usability typically found in in-house MIS systems or industrial control rooms.

    2. Time Travelers Can Use Current Designs

    An even worse flaw is the assumption that time travelers from the past could use today’s computer systems. In fact, they’d have no conception of any of modern technology’s basic concepts, and so would be dramatically more stumped than the novice users we observe in user testing. Even someone who’s never used Excel at least understands the general idea of computers and screens.
    […]
    If you were transported back in time to the Napoleonic wars and made captain of a British frigate, you’d have no clue how to sail the ship: You couldn’t use a sextant and you wouldn’t know the names of the different sails, so you couldn’t order the sailors to rig the masts appropriately. However, even our sailing case would be easier than someone from the year 2207 having to operate a current computer: sailing ships are still around, and you likely know some of the basic concepts from watching pirate movies. In contrast, it’s highly unlikely that anyone from 2207 would have ever seen Windows Vista screens.

    3. The 3D UI

    In Minority Report, the characters operate a complex information space by gesturing wildly in the space in front of their screens. As Tog found when filming Starfire, it’s very tiring to keep your arms in the air while using a computer. Gestures do have their place, but not as the primary user interface for office systems…

    4. Integration is Easy, Data Interoperates

    In movieland, users have no trouble connecting different computer systems. Macintosh users live in a world of PCs without ever noticing it (and there were disproportionally more Macs than PCs in films a decade ago, when Apple had the bigger product-placement budget)…

    5. Access Denied / Access Granted

    Countless scenes involve unauthorized access to some system. Invariably, several passwords are tried, resulting in a giant “Access Denied” dialog box. Finally, a few seconds before disaster strikes, the hero enters the correct password and is greeted by an equally huge “Access Granted” dialog box.

    A better user interface would proceed directly to the application’s home screen as soon as the user has correctly logged in. After all, you design for authorized users. There’s no reason to delay them with a special confirmation that yes, they did indeed enter their own passwords correctly…

    6. Big Fonts

    In addition to the immense font used for “Access Denied” messages, most computer screens in the movies feature big, easily readable text. In real life, users often suffer under tiny text and websites that add insult to injury by not letting users resize the words.

    This is just a digest. Worth reading in full.