nintendo

Australia’s Competition and Consumer Commission yesterday gave Microsoft its blessing to integrate Yahoo!7 Search into its own search engine, Bing. The partnership is reportedly part of a 10-year deal between the two companies in whch Yahoo will handle advertising for both companies.

Energizer’s Power & Play package wirelessly recharges the batteries in Nintendo’s Wii remote controllers, spelling the end for one of the most annoying things about the novel games machine: Having to replace the AA-sized batteries every time they run out. And if you’re a casual gamer who only picks up a game a couple of times a month – which is the majority of Wii owners – that probably means having to replace the batteries every second time you decide to switch the machine on.

People who hate creepy kids and Halloween aren't out of the woods yet. A new Wii-exclusive Baby and Me arrives just in time for the holiday season, so that every Nintendo-loving household can stick a wiimote in an anatomically correct doll's back to rock it lovingly via accelerometer and hear its gurgles, giggles and wails through a tinny Wiimote speaker.

Airport screening technology has turned to an unusual accessory -- the Nintendo Wii balance board -- to identify fidgety, nervous passengers who might have explosives or illegal items concealed on their persons. Or they could have had a long day and just don't want to stand still.

Name: Mario. Age: 28. Profession: Plumber. Ethnicity: White. Anyone who has played a lot of video games knows that the vast majority of characters are white males. However, a team of scientists have conducted the first ever virtual census, putting a number on the ethnicity and sex composition of video game characters, and raising questions about the psychological effects these games might have on members of the underrepresented groups.

Love it or hate it, no one can deny the popularity world-wide of jazz music. There’s something about it that oozes cool no matter if it’s modern masterpieces or a classic collection. But recently, Andy Baio of Waxy.org put a whole new spin on the jazz genre, particularly the music of Miles Davis and his 1960s album, Some Kind of Blue.

You can already swing a metaphorical tennis racket, do the virtual hula or drive a virtual steering wheel. So what could possibly be next for the Wii?

Why, this inflatable horseback riding saddle controller, of course. Seriously—-a saddle. To ride in your living room.

Forget about beating human chess grandmasters. Now computer scientists have challenged the best AI programs to beat Nintendo's "Super Mario Bros.," and perhaps evolve along the way.

It’s official: I have absolutely no understanding of the youth of today. I’ve become an old man (and I’m not yet 30). Here I was thinking that the DSi was going to stumble alongside its cheaper DS Lite brethren, but instead it’s flourished. Flourished. Turns out the boffins at Nintendo obviously know what they’re doing, considering they’ve sold 100,000 DSi units in Australia since it went on sale just 14 weeks ago. Crazy!

Heartening or horrifying news, depending on your outlook -- the American Heart Association has pledged $50,000 in funding for a student project to develop a CPR teaching program for Nintendo's motion-controlled Wii.

All day, we’ve been bringing you new impressions of Nintendo’s big holiday games, but allow us to note some little things of possible importance from our time with those titles.

Small things I observed:

Old books are collected in libraries. Old art in art galleries. Old music on commercial FM radio. But what are we doing to hang onto our old games?

According to IGN AU, the depressing answer is… not much.

While there may be a bare handful of institutions around the world doing their bit to preserve the games of the past, there’s little in the way of a concerted, industry-wide effort.

Worse, writes IGN reporter and friend of Kotaku Tracey Lien, there’s absolutely nothing being done in Australia to preserve the almost-forgotten gems of our own development history.

Apparently Nintendo executives frequent PopSci.com. Last year we evaluated the Wii Fit and begged for more technical ways to quantify how hard someone is working on the Wii. Yesterday, at the E3 conference, Nintendo did just that, unveiling the Wii Vitality Sensor--a finger-clip heart rate monitor add-on.