Wii would like to program

The Wii–it’s that other console that you play every now and then eight months after finally buying one. Yeah, the hard drive is super tiny, the game selection of good to bad is a ratio that you don’t want to know, it’s not formatted for a high definition world and waggle is just plain bad.

But.

It does have its purposes, here and there. And who is it that has managed to find a way to use the Wii properly? Why, it’s our good friend science!

Yes, the newest foray of the Wii outside the world of games has to do with a research project being conducted at Rice University, which hopes to find a way to use the Wiimote to control robot teachers. Oh yes, you heard that right. Our robot teachers. You see, science has finally done something to truly further mankind–we’re using their own technology to educate ourselves, thus putting our eventual robot overlords to good use. Take that, turkey!

Led by Rice professors Marcia O’Malley and Michael Byrne, the project plans to analyze motion using the controller and then compare it to an advanced capture device from Vicon. Whatever that means. Viva la human-lucion!