Official Google Reader Blog - News, Tips and Tricks from the Reader team

Feed Your Television

5/08/2007 06:42:00 PM
Posted by Mihai Parparita, Software Engineer

Earlier this year, I acquired a Nintendo Wii. As I was recovering from Wii elbow, I began to explore the capabilities of the Opera-based Internet Channel. It occurred that Reader may be a lot of fun on the Wii, especially with many photo and video feeds.

Some weekend hacking confirmed my suspicions, and the rest of the team also seemed to think it'd be a neat side project. As some have discovered, we recently flipped the switch on this feature. If you'd like to try it out, simply visit reader.google.com on your Wii (you may find it even easier to just do a Google search for "reader"). Keep in mind that this is something very experimental, the labs of Google Labs if you will.

If you're curious to see what it looks like, here's a recording:

You'll also notice that Reader on the Wii takes advantage of the famous Wiimote:

  • up/down: scroll up/down
  • right/left: next/previous item
  • 1 button: show subscriptions
  • 2 button: show links

When showing subscriptions:

  • up/down: previous/next subscription
  • right: select current subscription
  • left: close
  • -/+: collapse/expand folder

If you'd like to try the Reader interface in a regular browser, visit www.google.com/reader/wii to go into Wii mode. The Wiimote buttons all have keyboard equivalents (e.g. the "1" key for the 1 button).

Now that this is done, I've heard that the Commodore 64 has a web browser...