Engineer unlocks Wii's hidden potential
by Stephen Shankland
January 28, 2008 3:00 AM PST

I support the hardware hacking philosophy on principle, but most of the movement's labors have left me uninspired. That all changed when I started seeing the uses that Carnegie Mellon researcher Johnny Chung Lee has found for the Nintendo Wii's infrared remote control.

In a collection of videos, notable for their lucid explanations, the Ph.D. graduate student from CMU's Human-Computer Interaction Institute shows exactly how versatile the "Wiimote" system can be. Among the uses he convincingly demonstrates: a virtual-reality head-tracker; a virtual whiteboard on a wall, tabletop, and laptop screen; and a Minority Report-style arm-waving and finger-pointing multitouch user interface.

The Ninendo game device includes a bar-shaped device, ordinarily placed atop a TV screen, with two LEDs. It emits infrared light that the Wiimote can detect within a 45-degree field of view. Lee uses a computer to process data from those components and dramatically expand their utility. By attaching the sensor bar to his head and the Wiimote to a TV, he was able to construct a system that knows where his head is located.

That information is then fed into an algorithm that changes the perspective of an image on a monitor. The result is a very convincing 3D feel that looks like it would be a great fit for video games. The whiteboard application relies on use of a pen with an infrared LED in its tip. After a quick calibration--the subject of Lee's thesis--a computer can track where Lee is "drawing" on a wall, tabletop, and laptop screen.

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