Digital Church

I have been experimenting with Johnny Lee’s Wiimote White board.

The Build:
A trip to my local EB Games yielded a Wii remote (AKA the Wiimote) for $69.95. These are available at most department stores (K-mart, Target and Big W) as well, but the price is very similar everywhere I looked. You can find them on eBay for about $10.00 less and sometimes even less for second hand ones.

The InfaRed (IR) pen meant a trip to see the very helpful guys at Jaycar electronics (Midland is my local store) Here I purchase a IR transmitting light emitting diode (LED) for the princely sum of $1,

a momentary switch for $1.20

and a AA battery holder for $0.61.

totalling $2.82!!

I located some old marker pens and removed the inners and assembled the IR pen as Johnny Lee suggests (simple circuit with IR LED, momentary switch and battery pack in a circuit,assembled inside of the old pen housing).
I tested the circuit by looking at the pen through my digital camera which displays the transmitting IR. (yes the first time I had reversed the polarity on the IR LED!)

The software:
Step one was to get the Wiimote to connect to the laptop via Bluetooth. This proved to be the most problematic as I could not make the internal blue tooth from my Toshiba laptop connect correctly (it kept locking the Wiimote up). I sourced some updated drivers which were duly downloaded and installed, which appeared to solve the connection issue.

Step two was to install the Wiimote whiteboard software. Again this did not work on the first
attempt and a trip to Johnny Lee’s site showed that I had a slightly older version. I upgraded and
instantly it connected correctly to the Wiimote and brought up the registration screen.
Using the IR pen I registered the 4 points it asked for and then away it went, working very well.

Issues:
Placement of the Wiimote is very crucial as it has a limited angle of view and needs to see the
entire screen. I note Johnny Lee’s small cradle device…perhaps this will be my next construction job!!
If all this is a bit gobbledegook for you, then i suggest you watch his video

Low-Cost Multi-touch Whiteboard using the Wiimote

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Ok, this may not be big news for any reader outside of Australia, but the fact that today iTunes announced that it was going to start selling TV shows locally is HUGE! The price is $2.99 per episode which is bearable, but with exchange rates what they are it doesn’t compare to the US1.99 that is paid in the US. I’ll let you figure that one out!

The really interesting thing to note is that a number of the programs have been available for download for FREE up untill now, whether they continue to be or not is another question, that I cannot yet answer! But certainly the ability to get shows such as Lost at good quality and ad free for 2.99, it might just be worth it, especially for the die-hard fan.

You can of course add a Tv-tuner card to your PC, schedule recordings and then use a program like MCE-buddy to go through and extract the ads, and convert it inot an ipod compatible format, but really that is for Geeks only and yourt average iPod owner wouldn’t want to go to the trouble! Not to mention that technically it is illegal (whether the law is right or not is another question!)

Anyway my friends…go and download your fav TV show for 2.99 right here in Oz (finally we are catching up with the rest of the world!!!)

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Tonight on SBS (Australian TV) on the Insight program they ahd an interesting show on the ethics and otherwise of downloading music titled MiTunes.

It was a discussion about the evils and practicalities of the changing music industry.

You can watch it online at http://news.sbs.com.au/insight//mitunes_548047

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I’m sitting at my desk, it’s 6:30am local time and it’s a holiday here in Western Australia, so I’ve had a bit of a sleep in and am about to go outside and try to finish some paving I’ve been doing.

I’m watching TWIT (www.twit.tv) live on www.twitlive.tv

(edited) I have removed the embedded www.twitlive.tv show because it was really starting to annoy me everytime I opened the page!

what is facinating me is the sence of community that exists. There are more than 4,500 people on line watching live, there are 500 people in the chatroom commenting and there is another chatroom with another huge number of people. People are also commenting via Twitter.

People are conected and absorbed. I know I’ve spent most of the weekend in the backyard with the iPod stuck in my ears and listening to many different podcasts, TWIT among them…I feel part of the community, I feel a part of the family…

Is your church using new media to develop community? The TWIT network would be an interesting case study to replicate into the church setting.

your thoughts?

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I really like Twitter, but I am getting a little tired of seeign this…

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