The DIY geek blog Lifehacker posted an excellent article this weekend on homebrewing your Wii.  We always love the articles that Lifehacker posts, and this one is no exception.  You must must must check this one out!

Lifehacker also has a very nice article on the original hacks for Wii, including the DVD playing hack.  Please check them out!

I just stumbled across a website (thanks to Make Mag) that is a must-see for wiimote modders: Wiimotemods.com.  This site is chock full of excellent wiimote LED mods and button backlight mods - a great addition to your regular RSS feeds for Wii.

Check out this article on adding flashing LED’s to your rumbling wiimote.  Excellent step-by-step instruction with plenty of images and pointers.  Thanks, Wiimote Mods!

Make’s blog posted an article about a guy who hacked his canoe using two golf cart batteries, an Arduino, and a Wiimote to power and steer his canoe!  Check out the video below:

Hackzine has linked to a very cool site - RedKawa’s instructions on creating a Wii Media Center.

The main components of this hack are based around the Wii Internet Channel (which you can purchase with Wii Points), and the videos that you can stream need to be in FLV format (flash).

Check out the RedKawa site for the software and tutorials for this cool hack.

There’s a lot of rumble right now about Wii hacks, the homebrew channel, and all of the hacking prowess that is being developed for the Wii-Hacking crowd. The good folks at WiiHD have produced a homebrew hacking help video for those of you inclined to hack your Wii.

and for those of you who have no idea what the Twilight Hack is, check out the following video (go here for a full list of typed instructions that go with this video):

There’s also a whole bunch of info on the Wiibrew Wiki for the Twilight Hack - check it out!

Here’s a link to the main page for the WiiBrew Wiki.

Youtube user “jbreckman” hacked his Guitar Hero Wii guitar controller with several combinations of playable notes using half and full presses of the whammy bar, the power mode (raising the guitar), and a few others. Check out the video!

I just finished the Lightning race on the 150CC class of Mario Kart Wii. Yes, I know, everyone else has already finished and is laughing because I’m so slow. However, I’m very busy, so my playing time gets drastically cut down. However, in light of this momentous occasion, I am posting some videos of the various shortcuts in the courses that you can use to rocket yourself to “A” scores and gold cups!

Do you for some reason NOT have Mario Kart Wii?

These are just a few of the 40+ videos online about the shortcuts in Mario Kart.  There are some rpetty devious ones out there, as well - we’re still big fans of actually playing the games we buy!

Check out this video - a hack that includes a chopstick case, some IR LED’s, a Bluetooth adaptor, and a Wii-mote!

The great folks over at Make Magazine posted an article about a wii-mote controlled robotic arm - in this case, that is controlling that old 2-axis labrynth-marble-concentration game. Check out the video:

I just read an article in Make Magazine about a Netherlands-based composer, Tom Tlalim, who uses eight Nintendo Wii controllers to create and manipulate real-time sound. Tlalim connects his wiimotes to his body, and each controller senses a different part of his movement to his sound software “Supercollider,” as he (or she, of course!) dances, walks, or otherwise moves through space.

Check out the photo gallery on Tom Tlalim’s website.

Are you familiar with the “Homebrew Channel” on Wii? The little app that allows a user to run homebrewed apps on SD cards?  How about the “Twilight Hack?”  The hack that is used with Legend of Zelda:  Twilight Princess?

The latest Wii update kills the Twilight Hack, deleting the file from system memory.  However, the Homebrew Channel seems to have made it through the fray, making it still possible for homebrewed apps to function.

Check out the FAQ on the Homebrew Channel here.

Get a copy of Legend of Zelda:  Twilight Princess here.

I read a few articles yesterday on the cool new way to use the Wii Fit Balance Board. Leave it to the Germans to make the balance board able to help users cruise Google Earth and World of Warcraft:

A couple of guys from DFKI (the German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence) took a Balance Board and connected it to a regular old laptop PC. A custom C# application communicates with the controller via Bluetooth, translating simple leaning movements on the board into 3D moves on the computer.

Thanks to the cool geeks at Geekology for this news!

Lifehacker has an interesting article about using your Wii as a digital media center. It describes using the Wii browser and a freeware application called Orb to stream media files to your Wii. Author Adam Pash walks you through the steps to set up Orb on the Wii, with pictures and video. We haven’t yet done anything to extend the functionality on our Wii this way, but this is an interesting thought.