Linking diverse technologies
Sometimes a second look at an idea allows me to see exactly what I should have noticed the first time around (but didn’t). Today, a prime example came from the Bluetooth adaptor that I’d put away about a year ago. Then, I had the goal of attaching a tiny headset in order to Skype with friends. I never felt comfortable with it hanging off my ear, so when a proper handset came along, the little USB device was filed for the future.
Today, a question from a co-worker, “Have you heard about the cheap whiteboard idea?” sent me back to Google (which is never far away) and left me playing with a table full of hardware this evening. Briefly put, a student at MIT has figured out that the Wii remote can be used as a low-end computer peripheral, without any need to box, bowl or shoot monsters. His blog tells the story quite succinctly; my goal was to see how close to a working mockup I could get between supper and sleep.
On hand, I have two or three Bluetooth adaptors (one is internal to someone else’s laptop, but let’s not quibble over fine detail), a pair of Wii remotes that eat batteries, a projector (not actually on hand, but let’s leave detail to the rest of the world), the parts necessary to construct an IR pen, if I destroy a CD-ROM player that needs to be taken apart under the “just because” clause, and a lot of experience in jury-rigging. Not in the legal sense.
The fine gentleman at MIT provided basic software, which works, and I’ve managed to link with both remotes and the laptop on the other side of the room (I didn’t expect that, and when it even named the machine correctly AND got its colour correct, I was very impressed). This Bluetooth stuff has more guts than I’d estimated. If I can get busy with a soldering iron in the next couple of days, we can do a home version of Minority Report, even if we don’t really need to. It will be a distraction from the other elephant in the room (there’s a big holiday looming on the calendar).
In passing, my “hide the alarm clock” days have officially begun, and I’m a happy camper.
