New Nintendo patent: Wii environment sensor unit
Posted on February 28, 2012 by Brian(@NE_Brian) in News, Wii
A new Nintendo patent, filed in the U.S. last August and published last week, details an idea the company had for an “environment sensor unit”. Numerous sensors would be included in the unit, such as an atmospheric pressure sensor, temperature sensor, and humidity sensor. The unit as a whole could impact gameplay in certain ways.
It isn’t known if this is something that Nintendo still plans on pursuing in the future. Perhaps they’re considering implementing some of this technology in the Wii U, or maybe it’s nothing more than an idea.
In any case, below is a roundup of what the patent tells us:
– Sensor data could be used to predict the weather, estimate the time of year, and detect which room in which the device is located
– Can alter in-game content
– Dedicated microcomputer and memory also included
– Microcomputer/memory allow the unit to run the sensors at periodic intervals; it remains in sleep mode otherwise to collect and transfer data
– Sensor reading history can be plotted on-screen
– Information can be shared with others
– Graphs comparing different locations can be shown
– Atmospheric pressure data can be sent to a server
– It can then be corrected for elevation based on the location of the system and can be used to make a large-scale map of atmospheric pressure (isobar chart)
– Temperature/humidity sensors can detect patterns over time; infer whether the room is occupied
– Information from this can be sent to other users to tell them if a person is present
– Information can also be used to infer the time of year over a longer period of time
– In-game environments can be changed to match the real-life season/weather
– Possible applications include sensor readings with various historical data to generate indices such as beer index, influenza epidemic index, comfort/discomfort index, laundry index
– The system can make recommendations including what clothes should be worn on a certain day
– Unit can be equipped with a radio/infrared communication system to control other devices, such as an air condition
– The Wii Sensor Bar’s infrared lights could be used for this communication
– Smell sensor, dust sensor, human sensor, camera, illuminance sensor, and an ultraviolet sensor also mentioned
– Sunlight information can be inferred
