Wiimote Used in Second Life

New research coming out of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is looking into the potential training applications that might be used with Nintendo’s Wii Remote in the virtual 'world' of glorified 3D chatroom, Second Life.

Real-world simulations are perfectly suited to Nintendo's Wiimote, according to MIT research fellow David E. Stone, who claims that the Wii Remote is "one of the most significant technology breakthroughs in the history of computer science." Blimey. And we thought it was just an ace toy!

Stone’s WorldWired consultancy clients include a company training workers for its power plants; a manufacturer of medical devices and pest-control firm, Orkin.

With a little bit of tweaking and fiddling Stone claims that using the Wii Remote within Second Life gives trainees "the ability to easily integrate a wide range of psychomotor activities with simulations running on standard computer platforms [which] will change the ways people interact with computers." SPOnG wants on of the those 'psychomotors'!

Eric Klopfer, a professor at MIT compares the Wii Remote with a gyroscopic mouse which, by contrast, "maps well onto the computer's interface, but not to the person's. The Wiimote fits the user. … People know intuitively what to do with it when they pick it up because we use it like devices we are familiar with -- bats, rackets, wands, etc."

Hmmm, interesting stuff indeed, SPOnG is sure you will agree.

If you have any particular ideas how you would suggest using the Wii Remote in virtual worlds for real world training purposes, then let us know in the forum below. Patent the idea first though if it’s really good!

Don't believe that a Wii Remote can be used with a PC? We were kind of doubtful as well, until we remembered this piece of World of Warcraft funnery.



^{Source: Wired}