jesta
Moderator
Although not technically a Wii peripheral yet, a very interesting devices that looks to give the Wiimote a run for its money!
The little white box of the Nintendo Wii doesn't have too much to look at, but it still pulls in a crowd. Ball-IT, a Finnish company, is hoping to compete with the Wii using the same tactics. They have produced a small, little squeezable ball, filled with sensors that can interact with TV screens, computers and mobile phones which they hope will revolutionize the way we play video games.
Established in 2005, the Finnish company Ball-IT "aims to become a global leader in the development and production of motion controlled gaming solutions. These solutions include enabling devices and modules as well as core software components for implementing consumer-level User interfaces."
Although many other companies are also trying to come up with the next Wiimote-like controller, none have a product like Ball-it. "Ball-it wants to become the non-keyboard standard for remote communication with your screen." By using Bluetooth the golf-ball sized peripheral can interact with most other Bluetooth capable devices. The ball has wireless sensors built in and can sense geomagnetic fields, orientation, direction, speed, air pressure and acceleration, something that no other competitor has been able to do.
You can rotate the ball around any mixture of three axes, which means while stationary it can still send information, no ‘movement' as such is needed. You can also physically move the ball up, down, left or right, or close to or away from a screen, so when the ball is being used as a controller for a game these motions will be interpreted to interact with the game in different ways, depending on how the game developer chooses them to be used.
Also you can squeeze the ball to make it behave like a joystick, this way you can, depending on the game or application, shoot guns, hit tennis balls or zoom in/out on maps. Other uses are pedometer, compass and measuring tape, just to mention a few of the many ways this little ball could be used.
So far Ball-IT has raised $1.5 million with the hope of getting $3 to $4 million next year. The ball itself will cost about $20, but the company hopes to make money from licensing fees that it would receive for software to interact with the ball.
For the time being I don't think this will be the new Wiimote, but very soon down the line I believe this will be the next biggest gaming controller out. It has been brilliantly crafted and thought-out, using new ways to track the ‘real world' and the speed it travels through it; I can only see good things to come.
Link
The little white box of the Nintendo Wii doesn't have too much to look at, but it still pulls in a crowd. Ball-IT, a Finnish company, is hoping to compete with the Wii using the same tactics. They have produced a small, little squeezable ball, filled with sensors that can interact with TV screens, computers and mobile phones which they hope will revolutionize the way we play video games.
Established in 2005, the Finnish company Ball-IT "aims to become a global leader in the development and production of motion controlled gaming solutions. These solutions include enabling devices and modules as well as core software components for implementing consumer-level User interfaces."
Although many other companies are also trying to come up with the next Wiimote-like controller, none have a product like Ball-it. "Ball-it wants to become the non-keyboard standard for remote communication with your screen." By using Bluetooth the golf-ball sized peripheral can interact with most other Bluetooth capable devices. The ball has wireless sensors built in and can sense geomagnetic fields, orientation, direction, speed, air pressure and acceleration, something that no other competitor has been able to do.
You can rotate the ball around any mixture of three axes, which means while stationary it can still send information, no ‘movement' as such is needed. You can also physically move the ball up, down, left or right, or close to or away from a screen, so when the ball is being used as a controller for a game these motions will be interpreted to interact with the game in different ways, depending on how the game developer chooses them to be used.
Also you can squeeze the ball to make it behave like a joystick, this way you can, depending on the game or application, shoot guns, hit tennis balls or zoom in/out on maps. Other uses are pedometer, compass and measuring tape, just to mention a few of the many ways this little ball could be used.
So far Ball-IT has raised $1.5 million with the hope of getting $3 to $4 million next year. The ball itself will cost about $20, but the company hopes to make money from licensing fees that it would receive for software to interact with the ball.
For the time being I don't think this will be the new Wiimote, but very soon down the line I believe this will be the next biggest gaming controller out. It has been brilliantly crafted and thought-out, using new ways to track the ‘real world' and the speed it travels through it; I can only see good things to come.
Link
