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Final Version of Wii Browser Now Available
CVG points out that, as of today, the final version of the Wii Opera browser is available for download. Make sure and do the update sometime in the next month or so; as you might recall from the original announcement, it will only be free until the end of June. "You can finally ditch the trial version of the Opera browser and download the full and final package, which comes with added features, such as 'www.' and '.com' buttons as well as improved functionality like a faster boot-up and better zoom capability. You can download it right now for free, first by updating your system, then grabbing the update from the Wii Software page on the Shop Channel."
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
It's mid-April! They've got 2.5 months until the end of June.
So how long do you think it will be before an inebriated collection of soccer-moms bands together and attacks Nintendo of America for trying to sell these consoles complete with "porn-access" (a.k.a. an internet connection) to their kids...
Um, because they don't want people being able to hack the virtual console, and possibly hack into other people's Wiis and steal their points, or some such?
And by saying you only use Open Source software, that means you don't use any consoles, because none of them are open source. Or use blue ray disks, or HD disks, or office products, or most websites...
Open source zealots really need to be better informed before they go off on these rants, makes the rest of you intelligent OSS people look bad.
Great! Now all I need is a Wii!
(Still searching for one in Toronto)
Reality has a liberal bias
I pulled it down yesterday when Nintendo sent out the notice to Wii's using Connect24. They indicated it was a new version of the trial browser. Nowhere did I see it branded as the final release.
Now if only I could disable those new sounds.
B-Button scrolling is a bit too sensitive. I liked it better before. D-Pad scrolling is a nice alternative though.
Opening the address bar does not open it with the current URL. That would have been nice.
It would also be nice if it would make plain text URL's into links. Manual entry is hell without a keyboard.
New font features kick ass! Text is MUCH easier to read now!
I got this earlier today, its a shame that there are no tabs though... Still it works ok, nothing compared to a browser on a computer. Being able to use a real mouse and keybored might make it a bit better but ultimately pretty much everyone has a computer.
Also, if you have a large TV (mine is 32") it can look a bit crappy when you are close enough to have good control over the pointer - but I can't really complain
Every report on this mentions magical new buttons for quickly entering "www." and ".com", but I see no such thing. I did the update last night and assumed they would appear as buttons on the onscreen keyboard, but I don't see them. On a hunch I tried entering just "google" as an address, and it helpfully took me to "www.google.com". Nice, but not the same as "having buttons" as everyone keeps mentioning.
Who's going to pay for it?
1. Does Youtube work? Does it handle streaming audio/video? I haven't found anyone who will (or can, see #2) comment on it. If not "interesting" but meaningless if some of the best reasons to browse stuff on a TV doesn't work. No one is dying to read /. on their Wii.
2. When will Nintendo get around to actually selling people a Wii? Again these features are "interesting" but entirely meaningless if too few people actually have to hardware to enjoy it.
More advanced zoom. You can zoom in extremely close, or extremely far out. - Very critical!
... to get to the big lies!
Crisper fonts due to updated font rendering technology. - hmm, ok
Optimized for faster browsing and video game playing. (Seriously!) - Monty Python Tetris here i come! (Bring Out Your Dead!)
Other WiiMote cursors are now visible. They cannot interact with pages, but they can be used as laser pointer replacements. - ok
Scrolling has been improved with the arrows only showing while scrolling and a line showing how fast you're dragging. - very important!
The arrow keys now scroll rather than navigating. - I was wondering if they'd clue in about that.
The so-called "A-button cooldown effect" has been fixed. This was the bug that prevented rapid clicking. - now I can skip thru long boring WH speeches
There are now settings for Proxies and other browser features. -ok
The toolbar has been updated with easy access to the URL entry, search, and page information. - good, took forever to do it on a Wii keyboard
The toolbar can now be hidden. - CRITICAL - since the screen is not that big
Cursors have been updated with nicer loading and clicking effects. -ok
Sounds are now associated with events like clicking and loading. - wish we could edit them to be Ni! Bing! I say!
The browser now fills the entire screen. You can change the scaling if the browser is clipped. - CRITICAL!!
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It's true. I have been having a really hard time getting full blueprints for my stapler.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
The free-until-June deal originally seemed awesome. Until I realized that every store around here still sells out the Wii instantly the moment they have any in stock.
There's a good chance that by the time the deal expires in June, it will still be almost impossible to find a Wii, and those of us that have been TRYING to buy one since launch day will have been screwed by Opera for not adjusting their deal to account for this problem.
...you can now watch movies on Youtube.
Monty Python Tetris here i come! (Bring Out Your Dead!) I thought this was PC cdrom. There is a web version of it? I sure can't find it?!!
Please help!
WHAT? Video game players playing with their Wii by themselves? Surely this must be a first.
"Now I'm seriously serious!" - Serious Sam
It seems like EVERYTHING i complained (to my wife, who ignored me) about when using the beta has been fixed or changed.. this is great! Now I can watch online vids of Robot Chicken without being frustrated by the crude control scheme.
GJ nintendo.
The new zooming is a welcome feature, previously I had to adapt my games site to be a better size for displaying on the Wii, but now that is much less of an issue.
Its a real shame that there hasn't been any mention of Java support though, a JVM (and preferably Flash 9.0 too) would have made this far more useful just because of all the content currently out there. If it had featured a fast JVM with an API for the WiiMote this could have sparked off a huge wave of homebrew developments. This is possible with the current support for Flash 7.0, but both have their advantages so why be forced into just one?
Its a shame this won't remain free, the Wii shortage is bad enough already without some people being hurried into getting their console even sooner. In the mean time this is a very attractively priced internet appliance, and with some great games too, bargain!
So I'm not fully confident that I'll be able to find a Wii by June. Is there any way I can download the browser now and hold onto it until I can get a Wii?
...one of the newer pacemakers models that are made nowadays.
Security through obscurity does not work. The reason that they don't open the source has nothing to do with that and everything to do with making money. They don't want someone to be able to make a WiiPC and skip their hardware altogether. Unlike the other console makers, Nintendo make s a profit on each and every console sold.
"If you make people think they're thinking, they'll love you; But if you really make them think, they'll hate you." - DM
Well, I have it on CD-ROM, and even ran it on WinXP on my laptop, but I keep hoping someone will make it a web-enabled game where each time you get a row of decomposed bodies, a donation of $1 goes to Darfur.
One can dream. In fact, I have a song about that!
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YouTube (and google video) has worked since the beta in December. There was even a site created to help autoformat it so all videos display nicer on the Wii. This is just a front end to YouTube's site so you can bypass it if you don't care for how they are formatting it. Of note Strongbad, and Foamy work great too.
Does it handle streaming audio/video?
The beta didn't do shoutcast, but I have been using Finetune for quite some time.
Just go online to Costco or WalMart or Target or where ever and buy it online.
It will ship within days.
Problem solved.
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CostCo and Target don't have the system online, just games, and WalMart's bundle is sold out. Same problem as before, have to be in the right place at the right time.
Now, if there was just a keyboard for the Wii . . .
"The Sage treasures Unity and measures all things by it" - Lao Tzu
Gamestation's website (google it, not link whoring) has a "news letter" type sign up for the wii. They will tell you 48 hours in advance of when they put the Wii on their website to order. This is how I got mine the first time I was told they had some in stock.
It's not hard, just requires a little planning.
I like muppets.
> Security through obscurity does not work.
You're right. Please post your account username and password along with your social security number, bank number, and routing number to this forum to express your outrage that someone might think such a thing.
> The reason that they don't open the source has nothing to do with that and
> everything to do with making money. They don't want someone to be able to
> make a WiiPC and skip their hardware altogether. Unlike the other console
> makers, Nintendo make s a profit on each and every console sold.
Yeah, those lousy bastards actually want to be PAID for their WORK when we all know that everything in the world ought to be free. And I would like a pony.
Your overdeveloped sense of entitlement is not a business plan.
It works great, but it has taken me 10 minutes to type this post on the Wii's virtual keyboard!
And that CAPTCHA is a bitch to get right, too. You have to zoom in on it to be able to read it, and you can't look at it while typing because tge virtual keyboard takes up the whole screen.
MS makes a profit on the 360.
Actually, security through obscurity does work, against a significant number of potential hackers (80% or more). The more determined ones are going to be doing it anyway, but it at least stops the clumsy hackers. I'd rather have 50 hackers having cracked the Wii protection than 500.
I think you're a bit confused. 'Security through obscurity' has to do with software, not personal data. It has to do with obtaining personal data through bugs/holes in the software, not by someone posting that info on a forum. If you think asking for my password makes you a hacker, I'm not only not scared of anything you could ever do, but I'm happy to know that fast food restaurants will always have plenty of employees.
Also, I never said that earning a buck was a bad thing. You simply assumed I was like the drooling FOSS fanboys. Nintendo's reasoning is sound and correct. It just has absolutely nothing to do with hacking and everything to do with money. I'll say it again, so you don't get confused about that: Earning money is not evil. There is plenty of room in this world for Nintendo, me, and every other programmer that wants to earn money at it, as well as everyone who wants to donate their hard work to the free software movement. I'll even be doing some of it myself in the future. The 2 things are not mutually exclusive, not even in the tiny minds of human beings.
"If you make people think they're thinking, they'll love you; But if you really make them think, they'll hate you." - DM
Doesn't a standard USB keyboard work on it?
D.
Right. You obviously never bothered to check if any of those stores even SELL the Wii online.
Costco (US): Doesn't sell the Wii console itself
Costco (Canada): Doesn't sell the Wii console itself
Walmart (US): Only has the $600 bundle. Sold out.
Walmart (Canada): Doesn't sell the Wii console itself.
Target (US): Doesn't sell the Wii console itself.
Target (Canada): There is no Target in Canada.
What was that about problem solved? You'll see the same situation at pretty much any online store. If they carry it, they're out of stock.
No, you can buy the full Costco bundle - I think it's the Wii system, two controllers (both Wii-mote and nunchuk), Zelda: TP, Excite Truck, and I think another cool game.
Online.
At least you can in Seattle.
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Found it at Costco
... what? sorry, I was asleep.
Is it This?
Just keep checking Toys and Games - Special Deals and One-time Offers. It was online for at least 90 days.
You snooze. You
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Found it at Costco
Is it This?
Hello Kitty® 128MB MP3 Player? No. That's not it.
Just keep checking Toys and Games - Special Deals and One-time Offers. It was online for at least 90 days.
costco.ca doesn't have that section. And on costco.com (which probably doesn't ship to Canada anyhow), it's actually "New Items & Limited Time Offers", not "Special Deals and One-time Offers".
or, it might be regionally coded, and show different things to different people, from a .apx file - hmmm, maybe in the South it says "Newfangled Stuff and Things Your Ma Won't Like" or something like that ...
In fact, availability might be impacted by other factors.
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I was kind of nervous at first that outgoing requests would be sent to Nintendo, who would fetch the page and return a pre-digested version, ala WebTV. I was pleasantly surprised to see from my own server logs, though, that my Wii was directly connecting to remote hosts without going through any proxy. That makes me feel infinitely more comfortable about using it to access my webmail, online banking, etc.
Just throwing that out there for anyone else who had the same concerns.
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
This "sold-out" malarkey is alien to me, I pre-ordered mine in October, and picked it up 2/3 days after launch and have been enjoying it ever since (with a brief hiatus due to a bad back..:)
Are there any U.K.-ians who are having trouble getting hold of a Wii? Or is it just in the US? I know there were shortages here shortly after launch, but is it still a problem?
You mean screwed by Nintendo. Opera has nothing to do with it, they just licensed their browser to Nintendo. Nintendo is the one choosing how much to charge for it, how long to offer it free, etc.
Ok, so I apparently must have jumped the gun on the update I downloaded or the server I pulled it from hadn't been updated yet? What I downloaded last night was a newer trial edition (the blues were darker than the initial release). Today what I pulled was the final version. Weird.
Whatever happened to tabbed browsing? Wasn't that in the original plans for the browser?
I have a few dozen gigs of MP3s on my FreeBSD server. I'd like to run a program that compiles a set of HTML files linking to those MP3s, probably in an iPod-esque setup; click the top-level "Artists" link, choose an artist, and get a list of their MP3s. The goal of this, of course, being to have easy access to my music collection even when lounging around in the living room. If my Wii can play Youtube videos perfectly well (and it can), I'm sure it can manage to play an MP3 from another host on the same LAN.
Does such an application already exist, or is it hacking time?
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
This post was done with the wiimote. Certain pages however still don't work well. The auto word finisher works great.
"To be is to do." --Socrates
"To do is to be." -- Aristotle
"Do-Be-Do-Be-Do..." --Sinatra
I tried to pre-order in October, but ever store had sold-out their pre-orders.