Surfing Google Earth with a Wii Balance Board

At the Macworld Expo, Google engineer David Phillip Oster, displayed a program that allows people to drive around the Earth’s surface in a virtual milk truck, by using the Nintendo Wii Balance Board with the Google Earth API. By interpreting Bluetooth data transmissions from the Wii Balance Board, a user can shift their weight in order to change the movements of the truck. Oster used the Google Earth Browser Plug-in along with a Javascript AVI to make it possible.

David says that he wrote the application to inspire users to write their own programs. The Javacript was based on an open source program Monster Milktruck, while the Balance Board was based on DarwiinRemote open source decoders for the Wii Remote.

According to the posting, both Earth Surfer (and source code) will available in mid-January on the Google Mac Developer Playground.

Filed under: software
Other story tags: Google, MWSF, Google Earth