Games and gear

Accessories that go a Wii too far

To all the makers of insane Wii accessories, we say thank you. Why? Because we were on the verge of actually thinking that the "Bass Fishing Wii" sounded like it actually made sense, but then the latest entries to the market jolted us back into reality.

The cooking utensils featured on Gizmodo--complete with "frying pan, knife, fork and spatula"--are disturbing indications that people have gotten a wee too close to the Wii. These, by the way, come hot on the heels of the screw-on pool cue.

If people must spend all their waking hours with … Read more

Nintendo announces WiiWare

Pretty soon the Wii's online store won't be just for Virtual Console games and Opera. Nintendo just announced WiiWare, a Wii software creation service for indie developers. Smaller game companies will be able to use WiiWare to produce downloadable games to distribute and sell over Nintendo's Wii Shop Channel.

Nintendo's move has shades of Microsoft's XNA Studio Express initiative, in which the Xbox community can create games and potentially make them available for play on the Xbox 360 or on Windows machines.

This is more than welcome news for Wii owners, who have been experiencing … Read more

Nicole Kidman has a 'Brain Age' of 52

Nintendo fanboys are now officially in love with Nicole Kidman. Starting last night, she began appearing in TV ads for the sequel to Nintendo's incredibly popular DS game, Brain Age.

Kidman on the Brain Age series:

"I love the concept that Nintendo is reaching out to new audiences with its self-improvement products like Brain Training. Most importantly, I've quickly found that training my brain is a great way to keep my mind feeling young."

Interestingly enough, this campaign is being launched only in Europe with no announced plans to bring it across the pond. One would … Read more

Download now, or pay later for Wii surfing

Be sure to hook your Wii up to the Internet and download the Internet Channel soon. That's the deadline for downloading it for free.

So, what exactly is the Internet Channel? It's the feature that lets you use your Wii to browse the Internet from your television with the Opera Web browser.

Right now, the download for using the Internet-surfing feature is free for the life of the machine. But Opera released a "final" version of the feature in April, and soon you'll have to pay for it. As of July 1, anyone wishing to … Read more

A 'Second Life' parody you can't miss

OMG! If this isn't the funniest thing ever, I'm not sure what is.

Following on the lovely "Get a First Life" takeoff of the virtual world Second Life, some crafty folks have produced a YouTube video that shows a real-world take on what life in Second Life is like.

You have to watch it, and if you've never been in Second Life, you might not get it. But if you've ever spent even a minute in that virtual world, you'll probably snort your milk out your nose. Check it out.

Look, Ma. No wires.

While the new Tivoli Wi-Fi radio streams Real Audio Internet radio via Ethernet or Wi-Fi and can even stream songs from a PC network, that doesn't help when it comes to your iPod.

The TuneStik for $60 from Digital Lifestyle Outfitters combines an FM transmitter and radio frequency remote control. It lets you wirelessly play and control your iPod through any radio within 40 feet.

For when you are not by your Tivoli and need to use the car, the TuneStik has a clip-on cradle to hold the remote to your steering wheel.

The Wii goes fishing

Being old enough to have watched the original SNL--before it was called SNL--we've always had a special place in our hearts for bass. So we may well have a skewed perspective on the the "Bass Fishing Wii" game coming out of Japan (of course).

Kotaku says the game has six stages and takes place in locales around the world, including the Grand Canyon. (We had no idea that bass fishing was so big there.) It sounds pretty boring to us too, which is why Kotaku speculates that Chisato Morishita--a "former race queen model"--was hired … Read more

Atari memorabilia up for auction

If you happen to be in New York today and are a fan of old video game memorabilia, then you'd better get down to Sotheby's pronto.

That's because the auction house is selling off a huge collection of vintage Atari marketing materials.

According to Gizmodo, there are "135 large file folders stuffed full of original sketches, early designs and proofs of games" like Dig Dug, Asteroids, Pong and others.

But apparently, the price is steep: somewhere in the $150,000 to $250,000 range.

Nvidia's Tesla chips not just for pretty pictures

Nvidia's going after a new market with a lineup of chips for the high-performance computing sector.

The Tesla chips can be plugged into a PCI Express slot to drop an additional 500 gigaflops (500 billion floating point operations per second) of performance into a scientific computing workstation. That's a lot of flops for scientists to use when modeling genomes or sizing up potential oil fields.

Nvidia also trotted out a Tesla workstation and server based on the technology. It's a bit of a departure for a company best known for its 3D graphics chips found in the … Read more

Deal of the day: JBL Creature II 3-piece desktop speaker system for $34

Desktop speakers come and desktop speakers go, but good design lasts... well, if not forever, at least a mighty long time. Admire the smooth surfaces, enjoy the groovy mathematical curviness, appreciate the metallic sheen as you imagine yourself speeding through the galaxy on your own little cubicle-spaceship, with terrific audio. Ah! Space--the final frontier of hyperbole.

Listed today at one-third its original price of $99, this is a well-liked speaker set for folks who want good audio at a great price and with a very small desk-top footprint.

What: Harman JBL Creature II speaker system How much: $33.51 Shipping: … Read more