Wii Controller Secret
The editors over at Fortune magazine were kind enough to dissect the Nintendo Wii controller recently, revealing an interesting tidbit.
In addition to all of the well known features of the controller, the Wii-mote appears to have a special chip on board which is designed for voice processing applications. According to Fortune, the so-called “Audio Translator” chip is designed to convert analog speech patterns into a digital data stream (among other things.) However, from what I can tell, it’s this chip from ROHM Electronics, which sounds more like it’s designed for voice and music output capabilities than for input. As a matter of fact, the chip is designed for use in voice guidance applications such as the speech your hear from GPS navigators.
If it is somehow usable for voice input, it’s not clear whether the internal speaker on the Wii-mote could be used as a microphone, or if the chip would require an additional input source. While it doesn’t appear that the chip is currently used by any games, I’m guessing we’ll see it used in the future.
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I think that the chip might be used for converting data from accelerometers
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The speaker itself is capable of acting as a microphone, as they are essentially made exactly the same. Try plugging your headphones into the microphone socket of your computer, and then record your voice into it.
As to whether this would work on the Wii controller, I’m not sure, as it would have to be plugged into the microphone socket as opposed to the speaker socket. And why would they use a speaker instead of a microphone - doesn’t make sense.
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why post the cost of manufacturing the component? that has nothing to do with the cost of designing the integration of the component within the board, or the drivers to control it…
dot dot dot.
Brody lodmell, future BaSC(et case)
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The Wii is listening to your every word, and if you’ve hooked it up to your home network with access to the internet, it’s also transmitting your every word back to japan where they are planning to attack, and take away all of our pizza… mmmmm… pizza
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the same thing is on the nintendo ds. i have been using it a lot for The Phantom Hourglass. blowing out candles and yelling at people.
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it may be a silent way for Wii to sneak a privet Wii phone into the market.
maybe, once enough people have it, they will suddenly announce you can call other Wii users through the Wii controller.
this will boost sales…
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shay4578 i think they would have announced that by now. what is more realistic is if they were listening to as talking. spying on us. yip thats what i rekon.
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No, actually jeff is right, they’re listening to what people say about the games… both for random spying and for research. Lol
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we all have cell phones?!? mostly with cameras ??? they are not just listening…
then what ??
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“I think”, it would be for the Karaoke game they have released a while back, makes the mics cheaper to manufacture since they wont need that chip.
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Couldn’t this just be the thing that makes the sword clashing sounds in Zelda for example? I know I’ve heard the thing make noises before.
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we all have cell phones?!? mostly with cameras ??? they are not just listening…
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