If you're still not satisfied with the amount of rhythm games out there for the Wii and you're just interested in a little freestyle jamming, then some students from the University of Potsdam in Germany have just the thing for you. Using a Wii controller and the Nunchuk attachment, they've created a program which simulates playing a drum set complete with an adjustable system included to it.

The program makes use of the Bluetooth wireless system to connect to the Mac and transmits the motions taken from the Wiimote into sound. It even uses the accelerometer to measure how hard you're beating your virtual drumsticks and reflects the loudness or harshness of the sound. In fact, if you take a look at the video below, you'll notice there's no delay with the hitting of the "drums" and the sound they make.

What's more is that the program itself is free! This open source creation is easily downloadable at their website at ScreenFashion and can easily be tweaked using customizable MIDI settings for those who want to experiment with their own creations. So until Nintendo decides to release their own drum simulator, you can access the site through the read link below for those interested in downloading this freestyle drumbeating rhythm simulator.

It's been a while since we had any news about Frets of Fire, the Guitar Hero clone for Mac OS X. Early this year, we posted a GlovePie script that let Wii owners (or Wiimote owners, at least) use their Wiimotes with the game. Today, we came across a post at The Unofficial Apple Weblog announcing that the Guitar Hero II X-plorer guitar controller can now be used in Frets of Fire thanks to the Pref360 controller driver.

The whole thing originally came about when TUAW blogger Mat Lu asked Colin Munro, the creator of Pref360, to help him get the X-plorer controller to work with Pref360 and, in turn, Frets of Fire. If you're not up to doing some technical work on Pref360 itself, don't worry. The latest version, 0.05, now has native support for the X-plorer controller.

According to Lu, the Pref360/X-plorer combo "works great with Frets of Fire; just install Pref360 and then go into the Frets of Fire button setup and you should be able to assign the fret and strum buttons (the whammy bar is not yet supported in Frets of Fire)." You can download Pref360 for free from Tattiebogle.net.

We've seen a lot of mods lately, and if we may add, we're seeing a trend here. Remember the one that plays Wii games on a Gameboy Advance? How about the one that makes the console somewhat portable? And now we're about to add another "mod" to our list.

To tell you the truth though, we're not quite sure how you'll take this: We found a video clip of an iPod running with a NES controller. It sounds weird and all but the guy is actually playing a Ninty game on an Apple gadget. We wouldn't be surprise if the next one would include an SNES or a GC controller - heck, even the Wiimote itself.

Well, we'll just have to see in the coming days if something like that will actually happen. For now, just watch the video clip bunnyf00f00 uploaded and tell us what you think.

There's an old engineers' saying that goes "If it ain't broke...it doesn't have enough upgrades." And if we're reading this news  right, Apple's got the same idea. We've heard that they've been granted another patent for a "hybrid low power computer mouse," which looks like an upgrade to their wireless Mighty Mouse.

According to the patent (publication number 7,154,477) granted to Apple by the US Patent & Trademark Office, this new mouse design is slated to fix one recurring problem - short battery life. In an effort to stretch the Mighty Mouse's two-month battery change intervals, and to forego making a rechargeable system, Apple's new mouse patent called for a two-part tracking system. The ever-present optical tracking system, and a new low-consumption tracking system running on an accelerometer - the same device that runs a Wiimote.

The design's under development by Steve Hotelling, Joshua Strickon, Brian Huppi and Christoph Krah, and we're not too sure how these two tracking systems will interact to make for a low-consumption device. But for now, we invite you to read up on the full details on the patent, available on the read link.

At first glance, iDVD is nothing but a massive memory hogger on Mac. But a thorough and complete understanding of the product will prove otherwise. Aside from being a simple DVD creation software application, iDVD is being geared to help broaden the videogame market.

According to industry veteran and Bright Things CEO Dominic Wheatley, he can't help but be reminded of the 80s market whenever he looks at iDVD. His company recently released Lara Croft Tomb Raider: The Action Adventure on the said format. The 80s reference can actually be connected to the industry boom and competition influx that happened back then. He explained:

Publisher have told us they're interested in iDVD games because they are non-threatening and accessible and players can win easily. Through this they can get hooked on a character like Lara Croft, and maybe upgrade to a console or PC version. iDVD games could be a great ambassador to the videogame industry by getting game IP into the hands of people who don't usually buy videogames.

Wheatley then compared his company's approach to what Nintendo is doing with the Wii. It is no secret to everyone that the giant videogame company has always been big on revolutionizing the industry through its Wiimote. To this, the CEO reflected:

Nintendo is making a huge amount of noise about widening the market and bringing games to a new audience. The approach of a very easy control method is to dismantle the complexity attached to videogames, and we're part of that movement but in a different direction. What we're trying to do is pioneering and the response so far has been very positive.

Currently, there are only a total of 200 unique iDVD games on shelves. While this is a small number compared to the library of games any handheld or console has, it is still remarkable as there are only 30 iDVd games in total available last year.

Let's see... What has the Wiimote been able to control so far? Remote-controlled cars, guitars, Sony's PlayStation 3, EverQuest II, and some other items. Yep, that's a lot of stuff.

Now, how about the king of MMOs?

Someone's decided to make a tutorial video for using your Wiimote to play World of Warcraft. As you can probably see from his interface, he's using DarwiinRemote to get the job done, so you'll have to remember to get that too. It isn't perfect though, as the there isn't a function for the right mouse button just yet, but this is a great first step.

In any case, what are we waiting for? If you have a Wii, an account for WoW, a Mac OS, and a few minutes to spare, you might as well learn how to do this little trick, right? All that's left is to figure out how to get my character to dance on-screen, and I'll be the hottest Night Elf dancing queen this side of Ironforge. Sweet!

While we like the influx of interesting third-party gadgets that follows every new console launch, there are times that we have to sit back, take a deep breath, and go, "You gotta be kidding."

For those wondering what's caught our fancy, we're talking about 22Moo's Ultra-Light i-Vision video eye-wear, which is apparently compatible for the Xbox 360, Wii, iPod Video and Zune. And for those wondering what exactly this long-named device is, it's basically a pair of monitors attached to an eyeglass frame - the whole thing resembles something between a VR helmet, Nintendo's Virtua Boy, and La Forge's visors. Could this be a spin-off of another helmed horror?

The set comes in three different version:

• i-Vision 230 - 35-inch display, 320 x 240 resolution, 72g, $250 USD.
• i-Vision 922 - 48-inch display, 640 x 480 resolution, 84g, $350 USD.
• Argo+PC VGA video glasses - compatible with a PC, Mac, PDA, and any device which carries AV or VGA output.

Yeah, we know - we just realized that the cheapest set is gonna hack off as much money as a Wii bundle, which brings us to our next thought: the fact this doohickey works with a Wii. We've already seen the broken TVs, shattered windows, and sudden killings that have been following the Wiimote's strap...now we're blindfolding them?

Hmm, we're thinking there are two ways to make the gadget work: Either master your force abilities while blinded as Luke did in Episode 4, or just get ocular implants - worked for La Forge.

This is why open-source rules. Collaborating with Ian Rickard, Hiroaki has been able to further tweak DarwiinRemote to do a little bit more this time around, and it's interesting to see how far this new Wii-Mac mod project will go.

DarwiinRemote is a Mac application that lets you use the Wiimote on the Mac for specific programs. While the current set of things you can do with it is limited, making it a rather nifty toy or virtual mouse, it does show the potential for further use in everything from games to presentations.

For instance, imagine doing a slideshow on Mac using your Wiimote to direct the flow of your presentation. You can keep your presentation fluid without prompting someone to move to the next segment of your show or having to go back to the mouse every few minutes after stating your point. That's the kind of cool future we can envision from DarwiinRemote. It might not be immediate, but we're sure that Hiroaki, Rickard, and other members of the open source development community will make it happen.

In related news, Hiroaki's thinking of expanding the code for others to use:

I plan to divide Wii Remote Framework from DarwiinRemote.app. By using the framework, you might be able to use Wii Remote in your projects easily. It will include some additional functions such as various analyzing method like gesture recognition.

If PC users want to see a combination of DarwiinRemote and WiinRemote in the future, then this would be the best way to see the project expanding beyond its original scope into becoming something everyone can use for just about anything they feel like doing on their computers. Enjoy the download, and give the two guys some props for what they're doing, alright?

Download: [DarwiinRemote v0.3]
Download: [DarwiinRemote v0.3 (sources)]

If you want to see the changes in v0.3, click on "Full Article".

Let's say that you want to use your Wiimote on your PC, so you can play games on it or what-not. Well you can get the GlovePIE, but that sort of only lets you use the Wiimote's tilt sensing to handle mouse movement. This makes playing FPS games a bit awkward.

Alternatively (although it's Mac only), you can use Hiroaki's DarwiinRemote on your Mac. IR-based mouse movement might be a bit easier for you (if you're the FPS kinda guy), as the DarwiinRemote involves a lot of pointing. And pointing would be a natural motion for all you twitch-action FPS shooting addicts out there. Now if only there were more games of that type on the Mac.

Although there are no reports yet of this being used in a game (unlike the GlovePIE), at the very least this is a good sign. We wonder how soon it will take for people to figure out how to get home computers to sense both tilt and pointing capabilities of the Wiimote?

Anyway, here's what Ian Rickard, the guy who tweaked this app called the DarwiinRemote, had to say:

Still kinda buggy with the setup but once it's working it works good. If you have problems getting mouse mode to work, try turning the IR sensor off and on a few times and make sure you're pointing at a strong enough pair of IR sources AND you're far enough away from them (but not too far - 5 to 10 times the distance between them should work good). I worked a little bit on the random crashes, but couldn't come up with much. At least it shouldn't crash when it quits now.

To get started:
1. turn your Wii on with the Wii Remote (to power up the sensor bar)
2. start DarwiinRemote
3. Open the Wii Remote's battery compartment and hit the sync button, DarwiinRemote should report "Wii Remote Found".
4. Turn on the IR sensor (click the button)
5. Turn on Mouse Mode
6. Point the Wii Remote at the TV, as if your were controlling the pointer on your Wii
7. If the mouse doesn't start moving around, try turning the IR sensor off and back on (click the button twice).

Download [ DarwiinRemote 0.2a ]

Download [ DarwiinRemote 0.2a Source ]

General rule of thumb: if it doesn't work, quit it and re-open it.

WiiSaber is a clever little Cocoa application for the Mac from isnoop. Earlier, isnoop had made an application called the MacSaber, and what it did was used the Mac's "sudden motion sensor" - every time the Mac was moved, it would make Jedi lightsaber noises and keyboard backlight effects (vigorous movement resulted in Jedi lightsaber clashing and striking noises).

The WiiSaber application lets you use your Wii remote to make lightsaber noises.

So go, lock yourself in your room and start swinging your Wiimote around.

This is WiiSaber v1.0 Beta 1. isnoop says, "I plan on adding more features including more visual response and multi-controller capabilities soon, so check back again later." We can't wait. Meanwhile, we're entertaining ourselves by making deep breathing noises and pretending to use Force lightning on each other.

And here's the YouTube vid uploaded by thescott18. He mentions the force feedback (the vibration or "rumble" feature - he's not talking about feedback from the Force).

Download: [WiiSaber v1.0 Beta 1]