LIVEdigitally

1UP.com got their hands on the much-anticipated controlled for Nintendo’s next-generation game system, the Revolution, and posted a nice review. A wireless system with a very remote control-like look, it comes with the ubiquitous directional pad and a series of buttons on top, along with a trigger button on the bottom and an expansion port at the end (pic shows analog stick attached).

Here’s the kicker: the controllers are not only wireless, they are also apparently sensitive to orientation. By relaying their position to a sensor placed near the television the controllers can supposedly be used to play games by simply moving the controller in space. 1up suggests in-game sword slashing, race car driving or pointing guns in first-person shooters. Awesome! Turn the “remote” on its side and it looks like a retro NES controller, which seems appropriate given the company’s promise that the Revolution will let owners play classic games on the system. I don’t know about you, but this gets me all hot and bothered.

Their conclusions? They really seem to enjoy the functionality of the controller; playing different games designed to showcase the design choice elicit positive responses (using the controller to “shoot” an area on screen, using it as a fishing pole, controlling a plane, etc.). According to the article, Nintendo wanted to break away from the design of traditional controllers and provide people with controllers that facilitate a “pick up and play” mentality.

I applaud the idea, and I’m excited to see the final product.

Grab those jars of coins sitting in the kitchen/bedroom/kid’s room and head to the Coinstar machine at the supermarket! It looks like Amazon is the most recent company to strike a deal with the coin gulping bandit, and this time the arrangement is doubly in the favor of you, dear consumer: according to CIO Insight, people submitting their coinage will be able to get an Amazon gift card for the full amount of money they fork over. Amazon sells the gift certificates to Coinstar at a discount, letting the company greedily fill its pockets cover its operating costs without taking their typical cut of 8.9 percent. After counting the change, the machines then use a modem to call a central server, report the amount and obtain a gift certificate number from Amazon, which gets printed on the receipt.

Yeah yeah, so in the end it’s all motivated by greed: Amazon wants to get a piece of the lucrative “spare change market,” which apparently amounts to some $10.5 billion in the US alone. Yowza. I guess I’m just not smart enough. I’d never pay someone to count my change for me, but apparently a lot of people do.