The Ephemeric

Is such a thing really possible? Can one use Nintendo's amazing invention as a standard computer peripheral? Indeed it can be, thanks to the magic of bluetooth. You see, it turns out the wii remote does just use standard bluetooth, and the infra-red bar is just to give the remote some indication of where the edges of the television screen are (indeed it can even be replaced by two well placed candles on top of the tv, though why you would want to is beyond me).

So how do you do this? Well first off you need some software, get 'glovePIE' if you are unfortunate enough to use windows, and 'osculator' if you use mac. Load up your software and look for the 'search' or 'on' button and when prompted to do so hold down the 1 and 2 buttons on the wii remote. This allows the remote to be searched for by the computer.

Once the search process is done you will see a list of possible inputs from the wii remote, including the 8-way stick, the 5 buttons and the gyroscopic sensors (also extra buttons and analog sticks depending on any extra peripherals you have connected to your wii remote) You can take these inputs and choose from a menu of possible responses, keystrokes, mouse movements and various button clicks and map an input to any response you desire. By mapping the analog stick to control relative mouse movement on the x axis and y axis you can then use the remote as a mouse, and voilà, you have your own funky wireless mouse and a keyboard for up to 5 buttons. I don't know about you but I'm doing all my work with my wii guitar from now on :)