June 26, 2007 9:30 AM PDT
Download now, or pay later for Wii surfing
(Credit:
Opera)
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 surf the Internet from his or her Wii will have to pay 500 Wii points, roughly the equivalent of $5.
In a software-driven world, it's easy to forget about the nuts and bolts. Whether it's cars, robots, personal gadgetry or industrial machines, Candace Lombardi examines the moving parts that keep our world rotating. A journalist who divides her time between the United States and the United Kingdom, Lombardi has written about technology for the sites of The New York Times, CNET, USA Today, MSN, ZDNet, Silicon.com, and GameSpot. E-mail her at candacelombardi@gmail.com. She is a member of the CNET Blog Network and is not a current employee of CNET. 
