I'm sure by now everyone has seen an Apple iPhone. The iPhone's true genius lies in its user interface. The ability to scroll through lists with a swipe of your finger or to resize an image by putting two fingers on the screen and moving them apart is both brilliant and intuitive. This kind of innovation is what is needed for consumer electronics. I’ve had several PDAs including an iPaq with a full size keyboard attachment, yet I was never completely comfortable with it as a single source for all my needs. Most of the time I  carried a laptop around with me too. There always seemed to be this lack of understanding between me and the device on how we should communicate. Being left handed the handwriting recognition and I never saw eye to eye. The stylus was another point of contention. Poking at the device with an object smaller than a crochet hook just didn’t seem like a good way to interact with it, let alone try to put in anything more than a couple of words.

The Wii, and more specifically the Wiimote has shown that consumer electronics that are easy to use will rule the market. Let’s face it for the last two holiday seasons in a row people have lined up to purchase a Wii. There are a plethora of articles about the elderly using and loving the Wii. This is because Nintendo understood that changing how we interacted with the games was more important than having the most realistic graphic engine. I’ve played both the Xbox 360 and the Playstation 3, and they are amazing. The graphics are crystal clear and photorealistic. However they just aren’t nearly as much fun as the Wii. The Wii is just plain fun and anyone of any age group can play it. Again the Wiimote is the reason for this.

The Wiimote is a simple controller built on great technology. It connects to the Wii via Bluetooth technology. The way the Wiimote tracks your movements is done by a infrared camera in the remote, and the Wii sensor bar has infrared LEDs in it which the camera can see. Using these common technologies allow the Wiimote to be used for other uses. That is something that Johnny Lee has done and has done well. He recently gave a TED Talk in Monterey California. If you watch this video until the end you'll notice he gets a well deserved standing ovation.

If you haven’t heard of Johnny Lee he is a research scientist at Carnregie Melon University. Instead of using hyper-expensive hardware that most people won’t have a shot at even seeing he uses the Wiimote to do some amazing things with user interfaces. Being a person that wants to share these technologies he’s put the software that he’s written up on his website. What I really appreciate about his work is that he’s made it freely available, but also decided to use tools that are freely available to almost anyone with a computer and an internet connection.

I feel these kind of innovations are vital and I applaud Johnny Lee and his work. The great thing about these technologies is that you can get your hands on it right now. If you have a Wii, you can start playing with the software with just five dollars worth of parts from Radioshack. You can even buy the IR LEDs and the Safety Glasses with LEDs for under 20 bucks.