Hackers have done many interesting things with the Wiimote, and it's a little surprising that Nintendo hasn't taken any cues from some of the great ideas that the online community has thought up. The newest idea? Use the Wiimote and a pair of gloves to create a virtual theremin. Yes, it works and yes, it's awesome. <div width="425" <object="

A theremin is an instrument that doesn't need to be touched, you simply move your hands around two antennae to control volume and pitch. If you've ever watched an old sci-fi movie, you know the sound a theremin makes; it's that otherworldly trilling that you usually hear when flying saucers are on the screen.

Creating the effect using Wii hardware didn't seem very difficult, or expensive. Ken Moore explains:

At just $35, the Wiimote is an AMAZING piece of technology. It has an infrared camera in it which tracks the position [of] up to 4 infrared light sources. So I bought a pair of leather gloves, wired up a couple infrared LEDs to 1.5 volt batteries, and poked an LED through the tip of the index finger of each glove.

After using the Wiimote's built-in blue tooth capability to hook the controller up to his computer, he wrote a program that converted the vertical placement of his left hand as volume, and then the horizontal placement of his right hand controls the pitch. That information goes to a synthesizer, which converts the information to sound.

This looks like it would be a blast to play with, and it's much less expensive than even a low-end theremin. Nintendo, are you taking notes?

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