Wii News: News.

Well folks, I’m sure you all remember me telling you about the Wii I got for Christmas. But it wasn’t until a few days ago that one of the more interesting features finally got up and running. I have now at my control a full fledged AP wire feed.

The stories are about everything. I can browse in three different ways, the first being categorically. National to international, business to technology and even sports are constantly being written about for me. I can learn about the latest in microprocessors or about that escaped convict who stole Crystal Gayle’s tour bus being caught in Daytona Beach.

If I decide I don’t want to search through each article by hand (and I probably won’t, seeing as how the Associated Press types up hundreds of stories daily) I can switch over to slideshow mode, with each story getting about 10 seconds worth of attention. This method relies solely on the headline to grab my attention for the full read, but its a great way to get the gist of things going on.

But the third way is possibly my favorite. Globe mode integrates the globe function from the Weather Channel, allowing for me to search for stories by region. I can zoom out, and pretend like I’m Superman watching the Earth from space. Then I zoom back in and learn about Bird Flu in Japan.

There is one error though with this service, and that is the articles are all filed with a location. Now sometimes, the Wii doesn’t recognize the location, as it can’t place it anywhere on the Globe, and it’ll show a green picture of the populated continents in place of related pictures or whooshing to the location on the earth.

I’ve been playing around with it, but it also looks like this inability to place certain stories also removes them from view on Globe mode. You can still see them on slideshow and in the main categories though, so its ok.

I’m also worried about the buffer of stories. I don’t know how long exactly it will be able to go back yet, as it’s only been up and running for a few days, so this story about Shaq chasing down a hit and run driver might be here in a week, but given how many new stories will appear between now and then, taking up precious memory space, I doubt it will stick around for long.

The best part about the old AP stories is that they get updated, occasionally with pictures and with more text. In a way, they’re like a really delicious food analogy, and if you just let a few stories marinate for a few hours or days, you’re sure to have something tasty.

But anyway, I think this thing is neat. Its a up to the minute news service that isn’t a cable channel.

Oh yeah, here is footage of a typical Wii playing experience:

http://rogerdaltwii.ytmnd.com/