Wii Fit board speaks to Linux

See the red dot? So far, it can be controlled via the balance board, but hopefully Linux users will think of more exciting uses for it.

(Credit: Matt Cutts)

I'm not the world's biggest Linux fan and I don't own a Wii, but I can always appreciate ingenuity, even if the clear benefits of said ingenuity are not immediately recognizable.

Case in point, Matt Cutts has connected a Wii Fit balance board to a Linux box via Bluetooth. So far, all he can do is weigh himself in kilograms and move a red dot around by leaning in different directions on the balance board.

Not exactly exciting by any means, and seriously, it's difficult to see how this could be applied to do something actually cool or useful. One commenter on Cutts' site speculated that you could conceivably set up the board in such a way that you could scroll down a screen simply by leaning back in your chair.

Cutts wrote the program to interface with the balance board in Python, a popular and powerful scripting language, and claims users can get the same setup going in 10 to 15 minutes.

Will Linux users eventually be able to completely navigate their interface via the WiiFit balance board? Is that something they'd want to do? Is this the beginning of something that will lead to something incredibly cool and useful? Who knows. We'll have to wait and see where the community goes from here.

[HybridHT]

Instead of using a controller to "run" inside a game (Mario, First person shooters, etc.) one could lean on the WiiFit board to control that movement - and if the board was pressure sensitive, then conceivably the more one leans, the faster the character would walk/run (Lean F/R - Walk Forward/Reverse, Lean L/R - Strafe L/R). This would free up at least one thumb (the other would still need to be used for 'aiming'), or at least keep gamers from sitting the entire time.

[monkeyfun14]

If there was any real games for Linux.