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Speaker 1: Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera.

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Speaker 1: It's ready. Are you get in touch with technologies with

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Speaker 1: tech Stuff from how stuff works dot com. Hello again, everyone,

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Speaker 1: Welcome to tech stuff. My name is Chris Polette and

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Speaker 1: I am an editor here at how stuff works dot Com.

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Speaker 1: Sitting across from me, as he always does, is senior

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Speaker 1: writer Jonathan Strickland. Hey, Chris Polette, why do you always

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Speaker 1: introduce me? Second? Because otherwise I'd be going hi? And

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Speaker 1: Jonathan Strickland's here and Chris Polette, Yes, we we had

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Speaker 1: a listener asked why I was always listed Second. It

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Speaker 1: just because we kind of settled on this routine. And uh,

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Speaker 1: once you get a routine, it makes you feel nice

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Speaker 1: and comfortable, you don't really want to leave that. And

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Speaker 1: so when I tried just a minute ago, I got

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Speaker 1: lots and lots of giggles. Yeah, yeah, because it just

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Speaker 1: didn't work. Um, rest assured, faithful listeners, I am not

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Speaker 1: offended or hurt in any way that I am listed. Second. Uh,

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Speaker 1: the fact that I pretty much chatter all over Chris

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Speaker 1: whenever he tries to say anything. Uh, I think he

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Speaker 1: needs I think he needs top billing all right, So

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Speaker 1: let's let's get into the topic. Yes we should, Yes

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Speaker 1: we will. What we're gonna talk about today comes to

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Speaker 1: us courtesy of a little listener mail. This listener mail

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Speaker 1: comes from Jackie, and Jackie had a nice mail message

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Speaker 1: was fairly long, so I'm just gonna cut it to

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Speaker 1: the chase here and says I had a topic that

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Speaker 1: was wondering about how does the WE remote actually work.

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Speaker 1: I know it has something to do with the sensor,

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Speaker 1: but that's it. Looking ahead the future podcast, I can't

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Speaker 1: see any that appeared to cover this topic and think

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Speaker 1: that it would make an interesting podcast. Jackie, we agree.

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Speaker 1: So we're going to talk about how the WE remote works.

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Speaker 1: And we've talked a little bit about the Wei remote

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Speaker 1: in the past when we were chatting about the you know,

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Speaker 1: the different video game interfaces, but we really wanted to

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Speaker 1: dig in and talk about what it is that makes

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Speaker 1: the WE remote tick, how how it works, and UM

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Speaker 1: kind of some of the neat things that people are

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Speaker 1: doing with the Wei remote that perhaps Nintendo didn't really intend. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: that's uh, it's funny because the pieces that make up

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Speaker 1: the WE remote. UM. Actually one of the things that

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Speaker 1: people talked about a lot when the Nintendo uh we

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Speaker 1: first hit the shelves was the fact that, um, you know,

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Speaker 1: people who who were detracting from the machine said, well,

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Speaker 1: you know, they didn't use any of the high tech, custom,

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Speaker 1: cutting edge components that some of the other manufacturers use.

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Speaker 1: But that sort of works in uh well, it works

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Speaker 1: in Nintendo's favor in one regard because it keeps the

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Speaker 1: cost of the console down here. But um, as it

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Speaker 1: turns out, these components are also prized by hackers. People

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Speaker 1: like to take stuff apart and do other things with it.

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Speaker 1: I've seen many projects, uh cataloged in the pages of

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Speaker 1: Make MAGAZINEEN and YouTube and some of the other places

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Speaker 1: where people have messed around with it. Um. And it's

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Speaker 1: really the WE remote is a hodgepodge of different parts

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Speaker 1: um that basically take your movements and interpret them in

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Speaker 1: a way that the console can understand and allow you

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Speaker 1: to play the games. Right. So let's kind of talk

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Speaker 1: about the different parts that are inside your WE remote,

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Speaker 1: assuming you have one. Okay, all right, So if you

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Speaker 1: were to take your WE remote apart, here's where we say,

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Speaker 1: do not take your WE remote apart. People have done

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Speaker 1: this for you. You don't need to do it yourself,

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Speaker 1: and if you do do it, chances are you won't

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Speaker 1: get it back together again. But if you were to

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Speaker 1: take it apart first, you would notice that it's held

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Speaker 1: together by some pretty wacky screws. The screws are proprietary,

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Speaker 1: it's a Nintendo design, um, and it's designed in such

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Speaker 1: a way. It's kind of this weird sort of triangular,

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Speaker 1: three pronged thing. Uh. It's designed in such a way

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Speaker 1: so that it is not easy to remove those screws,

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Speaker 1: although you can find and screwdrivers out there, especially for

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Speaker 1: Nintendo repair kits that that do have the right um,

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Speaker 1: the right head on the screwdriver so that you can

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Speaker 1: remove them. Uh. It's held together by about four screws

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Speaker 1: and a couple of clips. And once you get that apart,

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Speaker 1: that's it. That's the only thing holding this this bob together.

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Speaker 1: And we're talking about the main we remote here, not

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Speaker 1: the nunchuck or anything like that, right, not the motion

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Speaker 1: plus right, not the motion plus either. Right. So once

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Speaker 1: you get that apart, you would be essentially looking at

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Speaker 1: a plastic casing, two halves of a plastic casing, and

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Speaker 1: a circuit board with lots of a little you know,

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Speaker 1: microprocessors attached to it. You'd see a speaker there, you'd

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Speaker 1: see some buttons. Um. You would also see a little

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Speaker 1: motor that would be attached to one to the upper

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Speaker 1: side of the we remote that motor. I'll just get

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Speaker 1: that out of the way first. That's pretty simple. That's

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Speaker 1: the motor that creates the rumble feel that you get

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Speaker 1: whenever you have one of those, uh, the force feedback moments. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: similar to the kind that you'd find in a cell

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Speaker 1: phone that you used for the vibrant mode. Yeah, it's

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Speaker 1: essentially a little off center rotating cylinder in there that

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Speaker 1: rotates and that's what causes the rumble motion. And it

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Speaker 1: pretty much just has an on and an off mode.

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Speaker 1: That's about it. Though. You can make it feel like

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Speaker 1: more of a of a vibration sensation if you turn

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Speaker 1: it on and off at a at certain frequencies. That

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Speaker 1: can actually make it feel like it's a more intense

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Speaker 1: or less intense rumbling. But like we said, it's it's

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Speaker 1: it's a bit. It's a binary function. It's either a

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Speaker 1: zero or a one on or off. Um. Actually, uh,

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Speaker 1: Jonathan and I were when we were doing research for this,

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Speaker 1: we found a great article in the I e e

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Speaker 1: ES Pervasive Technology magazine from Johnny Chung Lee. Uh, I

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Speaker 1: can highly recommend it if you're really interested in hacking this.

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Speaker 1: But this is where we found a lot of our information.

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Speaker 1: And he gets into lots and lots of detail. Uh.

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Speaker 1: He was a doctoral student at Carnegie Mellon University and

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Speaker 1: is now part of Microsoft's team. I believe he has

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Speaker 1: a pretty cool blog out there too. Um. But yeah,

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Speaker 1: so there we we got some really really good details

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Speaker 1: on this. And should we get into the individual components.

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Speaker 1: I want to talk about those. Um, you know, the

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Speaker 1: first thing, uh, you know a lot of people think

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Speaker 1: about is that three axis accelerometer that's inside the machine

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Speaker 1: and analog devices. Is the company that created that yep, yep.

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Speaker 1: And uh, basically you'd find these in other all kinds

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Speaker 1: of other technologies to they're they're pretty common these days.

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Speaker 1: Cell phone and you know the iPod and iPhone and iPad.

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Speaker 1: These are the sort of these are the sort of

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Speaker 1: sensors that allow the devices to know which way they

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Speaker 1: are oriented. So like for instance, an iPhone or an

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Speaker 1: iPod touch it would tell that it's whether it's in

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Speaker 1: landscape or or portrait mode. So the screen would flip accordingly,

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Speaker 1: same sort of thing, except in this case this the

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Speaker 1: accelerometer is helping the um the we uh figure out

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Speaker 1: what the orientation is of the WE remote itself, so

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Speaker 1: the pitch, the yaw, the role um as you move

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Speaker 1: it around. This is y'all, it's yeah, it's one of

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Speaker 1: the This is one of the ways that the WE

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Speaker 1: detect how you're holding the remote and thus can interpret

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Speaker 1: your actions within a game or you know, a menu

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Speaker 1: system or whatever. It's just one of the ways, but

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Speaker 1: it's it's the one that that got a lot of

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Speaker 1: press early on. And uh, I read one review where

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Speaker 1: it was kind of interesting where they're talking about taking

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Speaker 1: a part that WE remote and finding just a tiny

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Speaker 1: bit of disappointment that there weren't actual tiny little gyroscopes

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Speaker 1: in there to indicate the because the gyroscope is a

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Speaker 1: you know, it's a good old way of figuring out

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Speaker 1: the um the orientation of a of any sort of surface, right,

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Speaker 1: I mean, that's kind of what we what NASA uses

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Speaker 1: in a lot of it's the early spacecraft where gyroscopes

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Speaker 1: too to be able to make adjustments to the pitch

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Speaker 1: and y'all. But no, no, this is just a little

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Speaker 1: like tonic chip that essentially does the same thing it uses.

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Speaker 1: You know, it detects different changes in fields. So um,

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Speaker 1: but it's there is no actual little moving gyroscope inside

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Speaker 1: your Wii remote. No gyroscopes, no jack's, no tinker toys,

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Speaker 1: you know. Um, sorry I got out track there. But

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Speaker 1: there is an I R camera, an infrared camera manufactured

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Speaker 1: by Pixart Imaging. Um that's got a multi object tracking

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Speaker 1: engine in it. It can even it can keep track

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Speaker 1: of four simultaneous infrared light sources. You know. This is

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Speaker 1: what allows you to do lots of really cool hacking tricks,

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Speaker 1: which will give into a little bit later. But if

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Speaker 1: you're like me, you might be a little surprised. I

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Speaker 1: was thinking that would be an I R sensor right,

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Speaker 1: not not not a or not not a sense I'm sorry,

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Speaker 1: and I are emitter, and that the sensor itself would

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Speaker 1: be on your television. You know that you have a

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Speaker 1: sensor bar that you put above the TV. Because it

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Speaker 1: turns out it doesn't really sense, no, it it's emitting. Yes, Um,

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Speaker 1: so it turns out that the uh that it's swapped around, right,

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Speaker 1: I thought, because when you think of like a remote control.

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Speaker 1: When you press a button, you think, oh, I'm sending

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Speaker 1: a signal to the television or to the you know whatever,

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Speaker 1: the cable box, and that the cable box is a receiver,

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Speaker 1: and so that's how that's working. No, it's the other

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Speaker 1: way around with the WE remote. The the remote itself

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Speaker 1: is the sensor, and the sensor bar is actually the transceiver.

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Speaker 1: It's transmitter, actually not transceiver, but a transmitter UM. So

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Speaker 1: you've got at the end of your Wi remote this

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Speaker 1: sensor that detects uh infrared UM signals. And that's again

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Speaker 1: we'll get into it, but that's kind of the secret

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Speaker 1: behind we hacks and why the Wei remote has become very, uh,

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Speaker 1: a very useful tool for hackers. Uh. Let's see what else.

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Speaker 1: What else? It's got four little blue LEDs in there

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Speaker 1: tell you whether you're player one, two, three, or four.

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Speaker 1: The buttons, of course, are on little sensors. So every

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Speaker 1: time we press a button, that activates the sensor and

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Speaker 1: and the uh. When you get down to the point

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Speaker 1: of taking a Wei remote apart um, there are a

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Speaker 1: lot of buttons there. It's twelve buttons total, and four

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Speaker 1: of those would be the direction pad. A lot of

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Speaker 1: people just think of the direction pad as a single unit.

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Speaker 1: But yeah, technically it's four buttons. Um and uh, well,

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Speaker 1: it's got an expansion poured, it's got it's got the

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Speaker 1: port for the nunchuck or we motion. Plus it's a

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Speaker 1: proprietary six pin plug that's Nintendo's own memory. Yes, it

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Speaker 1: does have memory. It's got five point five kilobytes of

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Speaker 1: on board flash memory, which is good for storing your

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Speaker 1: ME if you're going to take your ME with you

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Speaker 1: as you go to a friend's house to play. Um,

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Speaker 1: just a little bit of information there. It doesn't it

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Speaker 1: doesn't store lots and lots of data, all right. There's

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Speaker 1: the speaker you mentioned that earlier. Yes, so that you

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Speaker 1: actually can get sound out of the Wei remote. So

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Speaker 1: if you're playing something like a Star Wars game and

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Speaker 1: you fire up that lightsaber, you get the nice little

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Speaker 1: wall wow noises coming straight from your controller and not

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Speaker 1: from necessarily just the TV. UM and uh. It has

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Speaker 1: a Bluetooth chip. Yes, it does. Is another reason why

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Speaker 1: hackers like it so much, because it makes it easy

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Speaker 1: to connect to various PC programs that have a Bluetooth

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Speaker 1: enabled UM uh component. Yeah, it's a it's the Broadcom

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Speaker 1: two chip UM. It's uh, it's not a dent human

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Speaker 1: interface design compliant, which means you might if you are

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Speaker 1: going to try hacking the Wei remote yourself, UM, you're

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Speaker 1: gonna have you might have some difficulty connecting it to

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Speaker 1: a computer. Although according to what Lee said, it's probably

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Speaker 1: the hardest part of actually uh doing a lot of

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Speaker 1: work with it is getting it to connect with a

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Speaker 1: particular computer. So what it depends on the computer, I think,

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Speaker 1: and whether or not you can you can detect it

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Speaker 1: easily or not. But but yeah, it does. That does

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Speaker 1: help out in the hacking department. I forgot about one

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Speaker 1: other component that you would notice if you were looking

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Speaker 1: at the circuit board, a capacitor. I am, there's actually

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Speaker 1: quite large capacitor on the end opposite of the UH

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Speaker 1: the I R sensor UM. The capacitor is is probably

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Speaker 1: probably provides some power to things like the accessories that

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Speaker 1: you can plug into the base of the Wii remote

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Speaker 1: for example, Again the nun chuck um, which on its

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Speaker 1: own does not have any battery power. It's it draws

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Speaker 1: all its power from or doesn't have battery power. And

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Speaker 1: note I can't remember it's been so long since I've

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Speaker 1: used my Wii. Um, what the way were on the

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Speaker 1: nun chuck. The nunchuck doesn't have a battery on board.

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Speaker 1: I didn't think it did. But as soon as I said,

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Speaker 1: I was like, whoa wait, if I'm wrong about that,

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Speaker 1: people are going to write in the will it's been

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Speaker 1: so this shows how long it's been since I've used

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Speaker 1: my Wii remote. Well, I do have in my notes

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Speaker 1: the connector is a proprietary Oh I said that, but

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Speaker 1: it does provide three point three volts of power and

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Speaker 1: four hurts of twelve C serial communication. Okay, so that's

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Speaker 1: where the nunchuck is drawing its energy from. The battery

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Speaker 1: provides the power to the capacitory. Topacitory can provide power

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Speaker 1: to the nunchuck. Um. Also, I mean the dun check

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Speaker 1: is gonna draw power from the we remote batteries as well. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: And if you are using batteries, um, instead of a

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Speaker 1: rechargeable battery of some type, um, you know, like they

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Speaker 1: have the third party and uh um the battery packs

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Speaker 1: that you can actually plug in battery or charging stations. Um.

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Speaker 1: But if you were using just a standard pair of

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Speaker 1: double A batteries, you're gonna get about twenty to forty

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Speaker 1: hours of battery life. Yeah, that's not that's not terrible.

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Speaker 1: Now when you think about it, I mean considering you know,

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Speaker 1: the sort of functions that you're using this this WE

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Speaker 1: remote for now, if you're using the Wii remote for

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Speaker 1: something static, you're using the Wii remote as a detector

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Speaker 1: um the way a lot of hacking projects use it. Uh,

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Speaker 1: it probably will last longer than if you were to,

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Speaker 1: you know, use it as a full um video game controller,

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Speaker 1: because then you're activating the accelerometer, the rumble pack, all

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Speaker 1: that kind of stuff, and that's going to drain more

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Speaker 1: power than if it's just being used as a sensor.

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Speaker 1: Now where should we go from here? Well, if you

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Speaker 1: think now, that's I mean, that is exactly how it works.

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Speaker 1: You're talking about again, the sensor bar has the LED

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Speaker 1: lights inside it, so it's the transmitter, not really a sensor. Oh.

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Speaker 1: We we should point out the function of the censor

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Speaker 1: bar because somebody might say, hey, you know it's got

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Speaker 1: all that stuff inside the controller, why do you need

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Speaker 1: the sensor bar. The censor bar helps orient the WE

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Speaker 1: remote and the WE so the WE knows pretty much

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Speaker 1: where the player is. Um. You know, if you start

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Speaker 1: anybody who has a WE and especially in someone who

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Speaker 1: has a someone like me as a pretty small living room,

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Speaker 1: if you you'll find that you step if you step

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Speaker 1: close to the TV suddenly or we may go wait

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Speaker 1: a minute, I don't wear Hey, where did you go? Well,

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Speaker 1: it's the the center bar and the camera on the

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Speaker 1: WE remote are basically telling the WE roughly where you are,

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Speaker 1: and if you make a sudden shift forward or backward suddenly,

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Speaker 1: that we might take a minute to reorient you. And

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Speaker 1: that's that's what that lag time is, is the censor

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Speaker 1: bar and I our camera basically figuring out what happened,

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Speaker 1: and the WE motion plus takes care of a lot

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Speaker 1: of that. That does help. That helped quite a bit

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Speaker 1: so that it could give more accuracy as far as

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Speaker 1: depth goes. And uh so, yeah, the censor bar is

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Speaker 1: actually got lights inside it ELI d Infra red lights,

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Speaker 1: so not we're not talking visible lights, it's outside the

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Speaker 1: visible spectrum, but they're constantly sending light out and the

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Speaker 1: censor at the end of the WE remote picks up

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Speaker 1: that light and that's what and through the Bluetooth chip

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00:16:01,960 --> 00:16:05,920
Speaker 1: can transmit to the wii UM the orientation of the

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Speaker 1: remote based upon things like the accelerometer and how much

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Speaker 1: of the light it's sensing from the sensor bar. Now,

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Speaker 1: if you were to decide to hack this, you're looking

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Speaker 1: mostly at the Wei remote as your your device. You know,

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Speaker 1: you don't even need the we anymore if you want to.

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Speaker 1: If you're if you're talking about a hack job where

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Speaker 1: you want to use the the WE remote as a sensor,

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Speaker 1: what you would need is some sort of of either

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Speaker 1: reflective tape or an l e D i R light

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Speaker 1: infra red light, so an infrared l e ED. We're

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Speaker 1: not talking about your average l d's that light up

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Speaker 1: red or green or blue or whatever. It would be

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Speaker 1: lighting up in the infrared spectrum. Now, I've seen some

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Speaker 1: really cool applications for this. The one in the article

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Speaker 1: was actually pretty neat. Where was talking about using uh,

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Speaker 1: the l and an l e D marker. So you're

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Speaker 1: it'll looks like a marker, like you know, like a

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Speaker 1: like a sharpie, Yes, but it has an l e

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Speaker 1: ED infrared light at the end of it. And then

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Speaker 1: you could project on a screen a um projected a

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Speaker 1: white board and you could write on the white board

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Speaker 1: with the l e ED light. Very cool. That's pretty nifty.

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Speaker 1: But the one that I really like was an a

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Speaker 1: Wee Ferreman. Yeah. Interesting, it was a fairman where the Fairman,

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Speaker 1: if you aren't familiar, is h this wacky musical instrument

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Speaker 1: that um you usually play by having a you have

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Speaker 1: a pair of sensors really um and as you get

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Speaker 1: closer and further away from him, you can adjust the

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Speaker 1: pitch and volume of a sound. And it's that weird

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Speaker 1: like wah wah, I'm noisy here in the old like

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Speaker 1: nineteen fifties b science fiction movies and almost in in

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Speaker 1: some ways it reminds me of a saw people playing

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Speaker 1: a saw, right, but you can identify the I mean

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Speaker 1: it sounds electric. Yeah, there is a difference in the

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Speaker 1: the eerieness of it sort of reminds me of saw

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Speaker 1: what it's like, and our keen eared listeners will pick

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Speaker 1: up on the Stephen King reference I just threw in there,

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Speaker 1: but yeah, it's the idea of the traditional thereman is

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Speaker 1: by moving your hands further closer, further away, or up

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Speaker 1: and down these various u UM bars, you can make

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Speaker 1: uh this weird sound. Well, it's kind of a similar

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Speaker 1: idea with the the the Nintendo we hack, the we

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Speaker 1: remote acts as the sensor and you use a pair

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Speaker 1: of gloves. Where the guy who did this hack, he

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Speaker 1: used a pair of gloves and he put an L

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Speaker 1: E D light at the tip of the forefinger of

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00:18:48,200 --> 00:18:51,400
Speaker 1: each of the gloves, all right, and then by orienting

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Speaker 1: his hands, he could move one L E D up

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00:18:55,640 --> 00:18:58,280
Speaker 1: and that would be the the I think it was

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Speaker 1: the volume, and he could move the other led closer

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Speaker 1: or further away from the center that WE remote, and

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00:19:04,800 --> 00:19:08,840
Speaker 1: that ended up being the pitch. And so he created

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Speaker 1: a virtual thereman, which if you've ever looked into the

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Speaker 1: plans for building a thereman, these things are fiendishly complicated.

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Speaker 1: They're not easy to build. Um. I actually know a guy.

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Speaker 1: I know a guy who did build one, and it

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Speaker 1: took him quite a while to do it because it's

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Speaker 1: just it's it's a pretty complicated build. Um. But by

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Speaker 1: using some software the that I think the guy actually

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Speaker 1: wrote the software who created the hack, And this I

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Speaker 1: saw on YouTube. I just did a YouTube where I

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Speaker 1: did a I think I was searching Theraman's at the

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Speaker 1: time and I saw this cool WE remote hack. But

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Speaker 1: using the WE remote as the sensor, it's the one

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Speaker 1: that's picking up where the led lights are coming from

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Speaker 1: UM and then running that through this software, he was

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Speaker 1: able to create the Freman UM, the virtual Freman. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: It's matter of fact, I've seen, uh seeing quite a

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Speaker 1: few we instrument type hacks. UM. The guy who had

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00:20:08,240 --> 00:20:13,879
Speaker 1: created this entire percussion uh ensemble where different kinds of

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00:20:13,880 --> 00:20:16,240
Speaker 1: instruments where he had it was really involved lots and

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00:20:16,280 --> 00:20:21,640
Speaker 1: lots of servos uh and other little robotic things used

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Speaker 1: to strike the drums, you know. And UM he had

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00:20:25,119 --> 00:20:26,920
Speaker 1: it set up where he could use the Wii remote

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00:20:27,040 --> 00:20:29,800
Speaker 1: to control what would be played at what time, and

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00:20:29,840 --> 00:20:32,520
Speaker 1: it was very very fascinating us. Uh quite a few

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00:20:32,720 --> 00:20:37,199
Speaker 1: videos on YouTube like that. UM. And uh, you know,

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Speaker 1: I'm curious, why would somebody bother if you, if you

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Speaker 1: these parts are basically off the shelf parts, why would

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Speaker 1: you say that people actually bother taking the time to

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Speaker 1: hack the Wii remote instead of going to get an

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Speaker 1: accelerometer and you know the l ed s it's already

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Speaker 1: made for you. That's a big thing. So it's it's

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Speaker 1: essentially like uh like going to for example, the maker

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Speaker 1: shed and getting an argue know board, and you know

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00:21:05,640 --> 00:21:07,800
Speaker 1: it's already You've got the components that you need to

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00:21:07,840 --> 00:21:09,720
Speaker 1: do it, and all you have to do is pull

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00:21:09,760 --> 00:21:11,159
Speaker 1: it apart and do what you're going to do with it.

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00:21:11,560 --> 00:21:13,800
Speaker 1: That's part of it, I think. But I think another part.

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00:21:13,800 --> 00:21:15,560
Speaker 1: I mean, you've already, like I said, You've already got

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Speaker 1: the components put together. You've got the Bluetooth component, which

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00:21:18,760 --> 00:21:21,119
Speaker 1: is a big part of it. UM, You've got the

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00:21:21,119 --> 00:21:25,800
Speaker 1: the infrared sensor there, and it's already all wired together

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00:21:25,840 --> 00:21:28,320
Speaker 1: in a circuit board UM. And it's in a very

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00:21:28,320 --> 00:21:31,800
Speaker 1: compact format, and it's cheap. You know, it's already put

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00:21:31,800 --> 00:21:35,200
Speaker 1: together in a in a relatively cheap way. We've talked

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Speaker 1: a little bit about some industries, like say, the virtual

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00:21:38,400 --> 00:21:41,840
Speaker 1: reality industry, although it's most people tend to call it

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00:21:41,920 --> 00:21:45,679
Speaker 1: virtual environments now or they call it something totally different. Well,

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00:21:46,480 --> 00:21:49,679
Speaker 1: it's hard to get funding for virtual reality and virtual

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00:21:49,760 --> 00:21:57,040
Speaker 1: environment projects. It's the the public, uh, perception of virtual

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00:21:57,080 --> 00:22:02,320
Speaker 1: reality was not accurate back when the term really took

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00:22:02,359 --> 00:22:05,359
Speaker 1: off in the nineties, right because we all heard about

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00:22:05,440 --> 00:22:07,639
Speaker 1: virtual reality, and we all heard that we were going

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00:22:07,680 --> 00:22:10,800
Speaker 1: to be living in this virtual space. And once people

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00:22:10,800 --> 00:22:14,560
Speaker 1: found out what what, how far along virtual reality actually was,

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00:22:15,240 --> 00:22:17,800
Speaker 1: the bottom dropped out of it because it did not

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00:22:17,960 --> 00:22:21,359
Speaker 1: live up to what our expectations were because a few

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00:22:21,359 --> 00:22:24,560
Speaker 1: people kind of overhyped it, and as a result, those

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00:22:24,560 --> 00:22:28,320
Speaker 1: projects lost a lot of support and it became more

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00:22:28,359 --> 00:22:30,760
Speaker 1: and more difficult to get funding for those projects. Even

402
00:22:30,760 --> 00:22:34,320
Speaker 1: though the work was still very much, very important, it

403
00:22:34,440 --> 00:22:37,960
Speaker 1: just wasn't as far along as everyone thought it was. Well,

404
00:22:39,680 --> 00:22:42,679
Speaker 1: industries like the virtual reality industry started turning towards the

405
00:22:42,800 --> 00:22:47,159
Speaker 1: video game industry for a lot of their UM, a

406
00:22:47,160 --> 00:22:51,119
Speaker 1: lot of their their equipment. They just cannibalize whatever they

407
00:22:51,160 --> 00:22:54,399
Speaker 1: could the video game industry, and the we mote is

408
00:22:54,440 --> 00:22:57,760
Speaker 1: a good example of that. Um You can use the

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00:22:57,840 --> 00:23:02,120
Speaker 1: we mote to UH to create a kind of virtual environment.

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00:23:02,160 --> 00:23:04,240
Speaker 1: One of a good example actually that's in that article

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00:23:04,320 --> 00:23:07,840
Speaker 1: that you mentioned, was a pair of glasses that allows

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00:23:07,880 --> 00:23:12,880
Speaker 1: you to create a parallax view of virtual environment where

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00:23:12,920 --> 00:23:15,320
Speaker 1: you would put essentially you have a pair of glasses

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00:23:15,600 --> 00:23:17,560
Speaker 1: and on either side of the glasses would be one

415
00:23:17,600 --> 00:23:22,199
Speaker 1: of these l e ED emitters infrared emitters. You use

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00:23:22,280 --> 00:23:25,320
Speaker 1: the Wii remote as the sensor. You would build a

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00:23:25,400 --> 00:23:28,840
Speaker 1: virtual environment, and you would link the we remote to

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00:23:28,880 --> 00:23:32,359
Speaker 1: the virtual environment. You put on a pair of glasses,

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00:23:32,440 --> 00:23:35,320
Speaker 1: so you're viewing the virtual environment, and as you turn

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00:23:35,359 --> 00:23:38,359
Speaker 1: your head, because the Wii remote catches the L E

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00:23:38,440 --> 00:23:41,159
Speaker 1: D s and finds the different orientation, it would change

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00:23:41,160 --> 00:23:44,400
Speaker 1: your view of the virtual environment as you turn your head,

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00:23:44,880 --> 00:23:47,120
Speaker 1: so it's like you're looking into a three D environment.

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00:23:48,040 --> 00:23:50,600
Speaker 1: So you know, as you look at a flat screen,

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00:23:51,119 --> 00:23:53,399
Speaker 1: but you turn your head left or right, and because

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00:23:53,440 --> 00:23:56,160
Speaker 1: the orientation of the lights is different with the Wii remote,

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00:23:56,440 --> 00:23:59,120
Speaker 1: it changes your view on the screen and it looks

428
00:23:59,160 --> 00:24:02,120
Speaker 1: like a three D environm Man, it's pretty cool. I've

429
00:24:02,119 --> 00:24:06,640
Speaker 1: actually seen that kind of uh displayed once before. It's

430
00:24:06,680 --> 00:24:10,080
Speaker 1: a little hard to explain. There are videos on YouTube

431
00:24:10,359 --> 00:24:14,760
Speaker 1: of this this uh, this effect. Um. It's a pretty cool,

432
00:24:15,840 --> 00:24:20,199
Speaker 1: very simple virtual reality implementation. But it's the sort of

433
00:24:20,200 --> 00:24:24,119
Speaker 1: thing that that the VR experts really get excited about

434
00:24:24,200 --> 00:24:26,840
Speaker 1: because it's within, it's you know, much more affordable, and

435
00:24:26,880 --> 00:24:29,919
Speaker 1: it's really accessible. It's not like there's only one of

436
00:24:29,960 --> 00:24:32,560
Speaker 1: these devices in the world. You can just run down

437
00:24:32,600 --> 00:24:37,000
Speaker 1: to an electronics store and buy one, you know, by

438
00:24:37,000 --> 00:24:39,159
Speaker 1: by we remote off the shelf, and then with some

439
00:24:39,280 --> 00:24:43,480
Speaker 1: software and a little hacking that you're done. You've got

440
00:24:43,520 --> 00:24:47,679
Speaker 1: yourself a virtual virtual reality machine. Yeah. Yeah, And I

441
00:24:47,720 --> 00:24:52,200
Speaker 1: was thinking too that the the other factor that plays

442
00:24:52,200 --> 00:24:55,080
Speaker 1: into this is the hacking factor, which is the idea

443
00:24:55,080 --> 00:24:57,880
Speaker 1: that you're taking something that already exists apart and doing

444
00:24:57,920 --> 00:25:00,840
Speaker 1: something with it that was not originally in tended. What's

445
00:25:00,880 --> 00:25:03,159
Speaker 1: just adds to the fun of doing that. That's the

446
00:25:03,200 --> 00:25:06,800
Speaker 1: classic hacking ethos. Yes, I mean that goes way back

447
00:25:06,840 --> 00:25:10,680
Speaker 1: before computer is even to like hacking the telephone system,

448
00:25:10,680 --> 00:25:13,960
Speaker 1: where you you create ways of making it do things

449
00:25:13,960 --> 00:25:16,159
Speaker 1: that it wasn't meant to do. We should totally do

450
00:25:16,200 --> 00:25:19,600
Speaker 1: a podcast on that, all about phone freaks. Yeah, we

451
00:25:19,640 --> 00:25:21,680
Speaker 1: could do that. That's a good example, all right, write

452
00:25:21,680 --> 00:25:24,520
Speaker 1: it down, Okay. In a future podcast we will talk

453
00:25:24,560 --> 00:25:29,040
Speaker 1: about phone freaking. Okay, Steve Jobs will feature heavily in that,

454
00:25:29,119 --> 00:25:31,480
Speaker 1: I'm sure, and we can get on the phone. That

455
00:25:31,520 --> 00:25:36,680
Speaker 1: would be awesome. Um well, we've already talked about project

456
00:25:36,760 --> 00:25:40,879
Speaker 1: at all in previous podcasts, but we haven't really gotten

457
00:25:40,880 --> 00:25:44,800
Speaker 1: into the latest developments on the Sony move, like, for example,

458
00:25:45,000 --> 00:25:47,480
Speaker 1: we actually have a name for it now. Um, we

459
00:25:47,560 --> 00:25:49,440
Speaker 1: used to call it just the wand yeah, well it

460
00:25:49,760 --> 00:25:52,000
Speaker 1: looks sort of like a wand it's uh, it's got

461
00:25:52,000 --> 00:25:54,840
Speaker 1: a glowing ball on one end. But it will officially

462
00:25:54,880 --> 00:25:58,280
Speaker 1: make its debut this fall. Um, the Kid's gonna cost

463
00:25:58,320 --> 00:25:59,960
Speaker 1: a hundred dollars. It's got it will have a game

464
00:26:00,000 --> 00:26:02,560
Speaker 1: in it and a camera. It also uses a camera

465
00:26:02,960 --> 00:26:05,640
Speaker 1: to help capture movement more like more like New Tall

466
00:26:05,720 --> 00:26:08,640
Speaker 1: than We, which is sort of backwards from that, right,

467
00:26:09,440 --> 00:26:13,240
Speaker 1: but the camera is on the device end, like the

468
00:26:13,640 --> 00:26:17,480
Speaker 1: television end, rather than on the the controller end. Yeah,

469
00:26:17,520 --> 00:26:21,359
Speaker 1: but people seem, especially the PlayStation three fans, the hardcore fans,

470
00:26:21,359 --> 00:26:23,960
Speaker 1: seem pretty excited about it. Um you know, going to

471
00:26:24,040 --> 00:26:27,280
Speaker 1: be able to do motion controller work with a lot

472
00:26:27,280 --> 00:26:29,719
Speaker 1: of the games. UM. And it too will also have

473
00:26:29,880 --> 00:26:35,240
Speaker 1: another UM sub controller for the other hand. UM, so

474
00:26:35,560 --> 00:26:37,320
Speaker 1: you know you'll you'll be able to use both hands,

475
00:26:37,320 --> 00:26:41,320
Speaker 1: not just the one right when you're playing PlayStation three games.

476
00:26:41,359 --> 00:26:46,479
Speaker 1: But interesting how this all has moved so rapidly and

477
00:26:46,560 --> 00:26:50,160
Speaker 1: has become such an important part of console gaming and

478
00:26:50,200 --> 00:26:52,960
Speaker 1: even even computer gaming because now that people are doing

479
00:26:53,000 --> 00:26:57,560
Speaker 1: that and using um, you know, the motion sensing capabilities

480
00:26:57,600 --> 00:27:01,240
Speaker 1: of these different components. Yeah, I think so and Microsoft both,

481
00:27:01,240 --> 00:27:04,240
Speaker 1: I mean they both clearly had these projects in development

482
00:27:04,280 --> 00:27:08,240
Speaker 1: before the The We debut, because I mean these are

483
00:27:08,760 --> 00:27:10,919
Speaker 1: long term projects or not something that you you know,

484
00:27:11,000 --> 00:27:15,159
Speaker 1: just turn around very quickly. However, I think that the success,

485
00:27:15,760 --> 00:27:18,239
Speaker 1: especially the early success of the we probably put them

486
00:27:18,240 --> 00:27:21,760
Speaker 1: on the fast track on in Sony and Microsoft's case.

487
00:27:22,080 --> 00:27:24,959
Speaker 1: One of the interesting things I noticed about Project Natal

488
00:27:25,080 --> 00:27:27,560
Speaker 1: I just did a quick look to see if you know,

489
00:27:27,680 --> 00:27:29,760
Speaker 1: more information about it, just sort of the stuff that

490
00:27:29,800 --> 00:27:33,640
Speaker 1: we figured out since the unveiling at E three last year.

491
00:27:34,080 --> 00:27:38,560
Speaker 1: UM pretty quiet, really, you know, did they at least

492
00:27:38,560 --> 00:27:41,080
Speaker 1: did the consumer. But the one of the interesting things

493
00:27:41,119 --> 00:27:44,919
Speaker 1: I saw was read up on on how the brain

494
00:27:45,480 --> 00:27:48,440
Speaker 1: interprets the you know, it's what Microsoft refers to as

495
00:27:48,480 --> 00:27:52,000
Speaker 1: the brain Natal's brain, not not the human brain, but

496
00:27:52,040 --> 00:27:55,920
Speaker 1: how the natal brain interprets motion and uh and your

497
00:27:55,960 --> 00:28:00,800
Speaker 1: posture in order to transfer that into a a in

498
00:28:00,960 --> 00:28:04,880
Speaker 1: game action and uh. Essentially, what it does is when

499
00:28:04,880 --> 00:28:08,480
Speaker 1: the cameras pointing at you, Natal software is scanning your

500
00:28:08,480 --> 00:28:13,320
Speaker 1: body and uh and matching it with a database of

501
00:28:13,800 --> 00:28:18,840
Speaker 1: virtual skeletons. Yeah. So yeah, there's this whole database of

502
00:28:18,840 --> 00:28:21,800
Speaker 1: different skeletons that it it has within its memory, and

503
00:28:21,840 --> 00:28:23,680
Speaker 1: it kind of matches you to the one that it

504
00:28:23,720 --> 00:28:27,480
Speaker 1: thinks it fits you the best. It looks at your

505
00:28:27,560 --> 00:28:31,240
Speaker 1: form and then says, okay, Uh, this point here, that's

506
00:28:31,280 --> 00:28:34,639
Speaker 1: a hand. That point over there that's the other hand.

507
00:28:35,080 --> 00:28:37,400
Speaker 1: This must be an elbow, that must be a shoulder.

508
00:28:37,640 --> 00:28:40,160
Speaker 1: There's like thirty different points that it matches up to

509
00:28:40,440 --> 00:28:44,600
Speaker 1: a virtual skeleton. And uh, because it doesn't automatically know.

510
00:28:44,720 --> 00:28:47,480
Speaker 1: It's not like the camera magically knows that your hand

511
00:28:47,560 --> 00:28:52,480
Speaker 1: is your hand. It's interpreting it based upon previous information.

512
00:28:52,600 --> 00:28:56,360
Speaker 1: And uh, the more you use the natal feature, the

513
00:28:56,360 --> 00:28:58,800
Speaker 1: more it kind of figures out, you know, oh, well

514
00:28:58,880 --> 00:29:01,960
Speaker 1: this I thought that was his hand, turns out this

515
00:29:02,080 --> 00:29:05,000
Speaker 1: is actually his hand, right, Because I mean, it doesn't

516
00:29:05,000 --> 00:29:09,640
Speaker 1: know automatically right now, it's not not doesn't magically understand,

517
00:29:09,680 --> 00:29:11,960
Speaker 1: you know. And we're all we're all different shapes and sizes,

518
00:29:12,880 --> 00:29:14,880
Speaker 1: so and depending on what you're wearing, that might also

519
00:29:15,040 --> 00:29:17,560
Speaker 1: kind of confuse it, Like a shirt might make it

520
00:29:17,600 --> 00:29:19,440
Speaker 1: think that your elbow is in one location when in

521
00:29:19,520 --> 00:29:21,320
Speaker 1: reality it's in another. And when it sees that you've

522
00:29:21,320 --> 00:29:23,320
Speaker 1: bend a certain way, it's like, well, either his arm

523
00:29:23,400 --> 00:29:27,200
Speaker 1: is broken or his elbows actually over here. So it

524
00:29:27,240 --> 00:29:30,720
Speaker 1: looks at your body, it compares it to its database

525
00:29:30,720 --> 00:29:33,760
Speaker 1: of virtual skeletons. It matches you up, and it does

526
00:29:33,800 --> 00:29:37,080
Speaker 1: this in just a couple of milliseconds um. And it

527
00:29:37,120 --> 00:29:39,640
Speaker 1: has to because if it didn't, then the games wouldn't

528
00:29:39,640 --> 00:29:43,280
Speaker 1: work because it does this thirty times a second, because

529
00:29:43,280 --> 00:29:45,920
Speaker 1: as you move, it has to adjust your the skeleton.

530
00:29:46,000 --> 00:29:49,320
Speaker 1: That makes sense, It's just right. Yeah, it's really really fast.

531
00:29:49,440 --> 00:29:54,360
Speaker 1: Even so, I've heard people who have used the NATAL system,

532
00:29:54,480 --> 00:29:57,320
Speaker 1: or at least the the prototypes, say that there is

533
00:29:57,520 --> 00:30:01,000
Speaker 1: a perceptible lag. It's not a big surprise because it

534
00:30:01,040 --> 00:30:03,600
Speaker 1: turns out that we can perceive a lag of just

535
00:30:03,720 --> 00:30:06,960
Speaker 1: a few milliseconds um. You have to drop that down

536
00:30:07,000 --> 00:30:09,320
Speaker 1: as low as possible if you want to avoid like

537
00:30:09,360 --> 00:30:11,719
Speaker 1: within virtual reality, you gotta drop it down because if

538
00:30:11,720 --> 00:30:16,240
Speaker 1: you don't, you get virtual seasickness because as you turn

539
00:30:16,280 --> 00:30:20,479
Speaker 1: your head and then the virtual environment changes to reflect that.

540
00:30:20,920 --> 00:30:25,800
Speaker 1: If it's not seamless, it makes you feel a little disoriented,

541
00:30:26,920 --> 00:30:29,960
Speaker 1: and you can actually get motion sickness from virtual reality

542
00:30:30,120 --> 00:30:32,560
Speaker 1: if it's not matched up close enough. The same thing

543
00:30:32,560 --> 00:30:35,280
Speaker 1: when at all, If you see an action on the

544
00:30:35,320 --> 00:30:38,520
Speaker 1: screen and you react to it, if it's not really fast,

545
00:30:38,680 --> 00:30:41,240
Speaker 1: then you're gonna you know, you're gonna get killed in

546
00:30:41,240 --> 00:30:44,040
Speaker 1: the game. You see something coming at you and you

547
00:30:44,120 --> 00:30:47,440
Speaker 1: react and then in turn, the game has to react

548
00:30:47,440 --> 00:30:51,200
Speaker 1: to your reaction. If it's not really seamless, than it's

549
00:30:51,200 --> 00:30:55,800
Speaker 1: gonna be a very frustrating gaming experience. Yeah, it's it

550
00:30:55,920 --> 00:30:58,320
Speaker 1: ends up being a little more of a lag than

551
00:30:58,400 --> 00:31:01,920
Speaker 1: say that we remote. It's it's not as instant a

552
00:31:02,040 --> 00:31:08,080
Speaker 1: feedback loop as whether we remote. So okay, then well

553
00:31:08,480 --> 00:31:10,280
Speaker 1: the moment, that's all I got too. So I guess

554
00:31:10,320 --> 00:31:18,040
Speaker 1: this will take us to a little listener mail. This

555
00:31:18,160 --> 00:31:20,640
Speaker 1: listener mail comes from Andrew. And Andrew says, Hey, guys,

556
00:31:20,680 --> 00:31:23,160
Speaker 1: I'll listen to your amateur radio episode last night, and

557
00:31:23,160 --> 00:31:26,160
Speaker 1: I'm just curious what is the purpose of having licenses

558
00:31:26,160 --> 00:31:28,640
Speaker 1: for different radio frequencies and such. Is it just a

559
00:31:28,640 --> 00:31:30,720
Speaker 1: way for the government to make some extra cash or

560
00:31:30,760 --> 00:31:33,520
Speaker 1: is it dangerous to the environment or people. I'm just curious,

561
00:31:33,600 --> 00:31:36,880
Speaker 1: whine matters whether someone transmits radio signals without a license.

562
00:31:37,200 --> 00:31:39,760
Speaker 1: What harm is being done besides the government not making money?

563
00:31:39,880 --> 00:31:42,360
Speaker 1: Thanks guys, Well, I wrote back to Andrew already, but

564
00:31:42,400 --> 00:31:44,239
Speaker 1: I thought this might be an interesting thing for our

565
00:31:44,280 --> 00:31:48,200
Speaker 1: listeners to hear. Um. It's really a matter of of

566
00:31:48,320 --> 00:31:52,000
Speaker 1: just uh managing all those different radio frequencies. If you're

567
00:31:52,040 --> 00:31:57,120
Speaker 1: broadcasting over a certain radio frequency within a particular geographic location.

568
00:31:57,240 --> 00:31:59,480
Speaker 1: Let's say it's a radio frequency that doesn't really go

569
00:31:59,640 --> 00:32:03,600
Speaker 1: that far but within your town. Um, other people can't

570
00:32:03,600 --> 00:32:07,640
Speaker 1: really broadcast on that frequency. Um or if someone already

571
00:32:07,760 --> 00:32:10,680
Speaker 1: is broadcasting on the frequency, you're essentially creating interference for

572
00:32:10,720 --> 00:32:14,959
Speaker 1: that person because you can only really transmit or receive

573
00:32:15,080 --> 00:32:18,320
Speaker 1: over one frequency uh at a at a time. I

574
00:32:18,360 --> 00:32:21,040
Speaker 1: may you can receive from one frequency and transmit over

575
00:32:21,040 --> 00:32:23,000
Speaker 1: a different one, and that's how you can have a

576
00:32:23,040 --> 00:32:27,120
Speaker 1: conversation with somebody. But it's really managing that making sure

577
00:32:27,160 --> 00:32:30,120
Speaker 1: that you don't have this cacophony of noises and interference

578
00:32:30,520 --> 00:32:34,480
Speaker 1: uh happen over any particular frequency. Yeah, we talked about

579
00:32:34,480 --> 00:32:36,480
Speaker 1: how ham radio got its name and for the people

580
00:32:36,520 --> 00:32:39,360
Speaker 1: who are basically talking over everyone else, you know, they

581
00:32:39,360 --> 00:32:43,560
Speaker 1: were the hands they were doing and and so the

582
00:32:43,640 --> 00:32:46,560
Speaker 1: license is really so that you understand this kind of stuff.

583
00:32:46,600 --> 00:32:48,160
Speaker 1: It's for the government to know that you know what

584
00:32:48,200 --> 00:32:51,040
Speaker 1: you're doing and that you're not gonna end up, say

585
00:32:51,080 --> 00:32:56,280
Speaker 1: broadcasting over a dedicated bandwidth for something like radio frequencies

586
00:32:56,360 --> 00:33:00,680
Speaker 1: or television frequencies or emergency frequencies. And that was the

587
00:33:00,720 --> 00:33:04,520
Speaker 1: point also of having the network, right, So that's really

588
00:33:04,560 --> 00:33:06,920
Speaker 1: the whole point of the licensing is really to make

589
00:33:06,920 --> 00:33:08,960
Speaker 1: sure that you know what you're doing and you're not

590
00:33:09,000 --> 00:33:12,560
Speaker 1: gonna end up causing trouble for everybody else. So it's

591
00:33:12,600 --> 00:33:15,720
Speaker 1: not just an idea of you know, not some sort

592
00:33:15,720 --> 00:33:17,840
Speaker 1: of money making scheme, because I'm pretty sure the government

593
00:33:17,920 --> 00:33:20,640
Speaker 1: is not making money hand over fist with licensing fees.

594
00:33:21,640 --> 00:33:24,080
Speaker 1: But um, good question. If any of you have any

595
00:33:24,160 --> 00:33:27,440
Speaker 1: questions for us, write us our email addresses tex stuff

596
00:33:27,560 --> 00:33:30,400
Speaker 1: at how stuff works dot com And we have an

597
00:33:30,480 --> 00:33:33,680
Speaker 1: article on how stuff works dot com about the Nintendo

598
00:33:33,760 --> 00:33:35,400
Speaker 1: we so if you want to learn more about it,

599
00:33:35,520 --> 00:33:37,280
Speaker 1: I recommend you go there and check it out and

600
00:33:37,320 --> 00:33:42,400
Speaker 1: we will talk to you again really soon for moral

601
00:33:42,480 --> 00:33:44,960
Speaker 1: this and thousands of other topics. Does it how stuff

602
00:33:45,000 --> 00:33:47,200
Speaker 1: works dot com and be sure to check out the

603
00:33:47,200 --> 00:33:50,000
Speaker 1: new tech stuff blog now on the house stuff Works homepage,

604
00:33:54,920 --> 00:33:57,480
Speaker 1: brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera.

605
00:33:57,800 --> 00:33:59,040
Speaker 1: It's ready, are you