All Play and No Work Makes Wii a Dull Boy
Unless you have been living under a rock since last December, you have undoubtedly heard about Nintendo's latest generation game console, Wii. Wii has taken the world by storm with it's innovation and simplicity.
Perhaps the most intriguing feature of the system is the Wii remote control, also known as the Wiimote. The Wiimote looks like a TV remote controller with a directional pad on the front and a trigger on the back. The Wiimote uses a combination of Bluetooth, infrared, and accelerometer technology to provide the player with a unique experience of game play using actual body movement to simulate realistic action. I have played the Wii and it is extremely fun. Using real, natural movement makes the playing experience really simple and very interactive. If you have never seen the Wii in action, check out this two minute trailer:
I was first introduced to the Wii by a coworker and friend, Mark Szczerbaniewicz. One Friday, he brought the Wii into work. After the work day was finished, we hooked it up to a projector and Mark, Dan McWeeney, Phil Young, and myself were swept away into Wii Sports bliss for a couple of hours. We were instantly hooked. It was a game playing experience like we had never had before.
Being the enterprise geeks that we are, it wasn't too long before we asked ourselves if this same kind of technology would ever be applicable in the business world. After some research and hacking by Mark, he actually found all the necessary components to get the Wiimote to simulate a PC mouse. Yep, that's right, there are the tools available to cheaply turn your Wii remote into an interactive interface for controlling the PC.
Using our newfound shiny object, we just had to experiment and introduce the Wii to the enterprise. We decided to integrate the Wii remote with an existing Ruby on Rails application connecting to an SAP BW backend. More information on the Rails application developed by Dan can be found here. The application is a resource planner that enables a manager to easily view and plan his upcoming projects, requirements, and available resources with an easy to use drag and drop interface, while utilizing SAP BW planning cubes for it's model.
Check out the video below for a high level overview and quick demonstration of what we did; however if you want to try this experiment on your own, hop over to Mark's site, WiiProjects.org, where he was nice enough to provide a complete, step-by-step tutorial.
Stuff
- SAP 6.40 NetWeaver 2004 w/ BW 3.5
- Ruby on Rails using Script.aculo.us
- Wiimote
- Bluetooth dongle
- Bluetooth drivers
- Homemade Infrared sensor bar
- Carl Kenner's GlovePIE emulation software (Glove Programmable Input Emulator)
Demo
I can hear you now questioning if there will ever be any real world business applications that this might actually be useful for. Well, I'm not sure we are on the brink of seeing your CEO hopping to and fro around the office while wavin' his Wii "in the air like he just don't care", but as you can see from this demo above, it may not be totally out of the question. I would love to see a scenario with a management team sitting in a conference room, Wiimotes in hand, planning their important projects for the year. The managers could collaborate together, each having his own Wiimote to interactively analyze different scenarios and data results.
So maybe this is a little off the wall and the enterprise is not ready to hire the Wii just yet, but we had fun with it nonetheless. We are interested in hearing other opinions and ideas about where something like this or something similar may or may not be useful.
-ewH
PHB disclaimer: we did this little side project 100% after work hours. =)
Popularity: 100% [?]
This blog covers all topics including personal experiences, thoughts, rants, etc. with a focus on technology and life in the blissful corporate world as an applications developer/solution architect aka Enterprise Geek.
February 26th, 2007 at 12:47 pm
Real nice Ed! I specially like the homemade infrared -;)
Hope to see more on this -:)
Greetings,
Blag.
February 27th, 2007 at 3:33 pm
My god you two are dull.
February 27th, 2007 at 3:35 pm
Awesome demo guys! I have a question tho, are you sure that ANY BT dongle will work? I think I've read on Wiki or somewhere you need a 2.0 dongle.
February 28th, 2007 at 12:34 am
@ Calvin K.
For the demo that we created, I just used a Ver 1.2 Dongle. The Wiki page I assume you are referring to is the WiiLi.org Wiki. If not then here is a link to all the dongles that are compatible: http://www.wiili.org/index.php/Compatible_Bluetooth_Devices
February 28th, 2007 at 10:59 am
Hi, Ed.
We've been doing something very similar in SAP Research. I head up an initiative called "Future Manufacturing", and we've been prototyping use of the WII remote as a "multimodal user interface device"…for interacting with and actually controlling manufacturing processes and related systems.
We're also experimenting the ability to send data *to* the Wiimote (the LEDs, speaker, and rumble) as a feedback or notification mechanism for alerts or events.
The UI is built in Adobe Flex, but is connecting to SAP xMII (and, indirectly, ERP, OPC, and the new "SOA by design" platform).
Let me know if you want to "swap notes" sometime.
All the best,
Rick
February 28th, 2007 at 11:32 am
Rick,
That would be great. I actually think something like this would probably end up being more applicable in an area like manufacturing rather than in the board room. It's really cool to hear that you guys are already doing research in this area.
I will definitely follow up with you via email so we can talk. Where are you based? We will be visiting the Palo Alto area soon.
-ewH
March 6th, 2007 at 1:04 am
That Nintendo Wii commercial is awesome!
March 7th, 2007 at 11:30 am
hey i guess that's cool if your in to geek stuff but you still cant beat me in any real sports. haha later
March 21st, 2007 at 1:02 pm
Good to see an application concept of this wonderful "toy". Link to digg entry:
http://www.digg.com/gadgets/Wii_would_like_to_work_Using_the_Wiimote_in_SAP_BW
March 21st, 2007 at 5:10 pm
Nice work! I see a lot of possibilities for new interfaces on corporate world. In the meanwhile, my company is always creating new ones for marketing and advertising, which are more open to attract people with new tech stuff.
We have around 75 types of sensors that we integrate into real world objects for converting them into game controls. Here´s an example similar to what you´ve done:
There´s an IR cam tracking a bottle moved by the players. Here´s a recent holographic soccer game inside a peruvian bank and controlled by people from the street through a proximity sensor tracking the X axis:
(9mb home video)
Enjoy and drop me a line if you want some insights and ideas.
Cheers!
Agustin
March 22nd, 2007 at 1:03 am
Hi Agustin,
Great stuff you guys are doing. I would definitely be interested in hearing more about your ideas.
Cheers,
ewH
March 22nd, 2007 at 3:22 am
Using a Wii to control BI! That's just taking the pi…
March 26th, 2007 at 12:40 pm
We have to create new ways of doing transactions or searching or organizing data, getting more freedom that the Mouse Drag and Drop for example gestures in 3D.
If I am in a table moving forward and up in a field of the table is getting the data ordered in that field.
A transaction screen should be like a Game Landscape (Mario Bross) where the different options to get the transaction in the appropriate state to start getting the data in, are like points in the landscape or characters, once I pick one the data to fill it can be pick with click and 3D movements.
Hope that SAP publishes a SAP-GUI-WII Soon.
Regards and keep the good work
March 27th, 2007 at 8:50 am
I'm interested in knowing how you interfaced from Ruby/Rails to BW – did you use web services?
March 27th, 2007 at 9:36 am
@Luis: Thanks for the comment, it sounds like you have some good ideas.
@Scott: For this example, we used the RFC connectors provided by Piers Harding, but web services would work as well. Here is a blog from Piers that talks about it. Enjoy! https://weblogs.sdn.sap.com/pub/wlg/4314
December 12th, 2007 at 8:58 am
Hey, sounds interesting, however I think the video is broken.
March 11th, 2008 at 5:59 pm
I think this is a really great idea, and one I would be keen to pursue. The technology is great – I really liked the video – but I have been sitting here thinking of problems for which this would be a solution. It would be very cool to interface this to wireless (as I am from Cisco I cannot help myself) and see how the Wii device woudl then operate in a wireless environment.
The applications would be ones that turn movement into meaning. Tricky in an Enterprise setting – much easier in an entertainment setting.
I would be keen to have a discussion on possible uses in a totally wireless environment – what would be the value in manufacturing? retail? healthcare?
Jeffrey
August 3rd, 2008 at 9:48 am
How i can install Opera browser to my Wii console?