Johnny Lee’s Nintendo Wii
April 16, 2008 | By Raymond T. Hightower
Technology can be expensive, and high cost limits availability. Johnny Lee is excited about making technology available to a wider spectrum of the population. To that end, he has used the Nintendo Wii, a $40 video game device, to create an interactive whiteboard and a 3D display.
Money vs. Creativity
Lee’s work is a clear example of how a shortage of money can stimulate creativity. Would Lee have begun experimenting with the Wii if he had an unlimited engineering/research budget?
A Faster Way to Spread Ideas
Side Note from Lee: Youtube has changed the speed at which an individual can spread an idea around the world. In Lee’s words: He’s just one researcher with a video camera in a lab. One week after posting his videos to YouTube, over one million visitors had viewed his demos, and a large percentage had downloaded his software. Some even went as far as to produce derivatives of his work.
How fast would his ideas have spread in a pre-YouTube world?