Electronic Arts announced shipment of The Sims 2 Pets for the Nintendo Wii to retailers worldwide. The new version for the Wii (versions for other consoles have sold 5.5 million units globally) incorporates the Wii remote and nunchuck control.

Currently, the intersection of my pet and my Wii is limited to shooing my dog out of the living room so I have plenty of room to prance around swatting sizzling forehands and backhands in Wii Sports tennis. 

The Sims 2 Pets players control their pets’ personalities and can teach them tricks like "sit," "shake" and "roll over."  My dog has learned to wait for the precise moment I doze off on the couch to then lick my nose/mouth/eyeball.  Calls to EA headquarters inquiring whether pets in the game will be capable of this trick were not immediately returned.

Source:  Electronic Arts, Inc.

It’s cute, and it’s cheap. What’s not to like? Coming in August, the Asus Eee PC should lighten your backpack while keeping your wallet nice and fat. $199 will get you an Intel Ultra Mobile chip, 512MB of RAM, flash storage, Wi-Fi, and other portable goodness. Might be perfect as a second (or third, or fourth) computer for quick Web surfing and email, but you might not want to use it to write the great American novel. And before you knock the name, remember how the Wii turned out.

Today I was going to write a nice article on the Wii or maybe Apple’s new operating system and it’s pros and cons. Then I got creative and thought…mmm, how about writing about robotics or even the progress of Holograms? Yet, none of this really interests me today. Call it being uninspired, but this stuff is BORING! Most of the time tech and science are really exciting (see yesterdays article on Tesla).

So, I thought back and remembered what I used to do early in the mornings, then it hit me. CARTOONS!!! So, instead of writing a long, boring article about what everyone is writing about, I’ll leave you with  one of the greatest science cartoons ever created. For those of you who actually care, it’s from the man himself: Walt Disney. Just click on the link below because for some reason this blog manager won’t let me embed it directly onto this page. Go figure.

Life on mars Video courtesy of You Tube.

May the Force be with you.

With the video game market at a consistent multi-billion tier, it’s no surprise that the Mouse will invest more into the biz after such runaway successes like the Kingdom Hearts series.  It appears that Disney will focus on DS and Wii development as it establishes into a software juggernaut.

Disney has also shown interest in creating an online world along the lines of Second Life, but their core business for the immediate future will be promoting (read: milk) existing franchises, such as Pirates of the Caribbean.

Whether or not we see Donald and Goofy frag each other FPS-style remains to be seen, but one could only hope–or not.

Speaking of the Wii, there are new reports that playing too much Wii Tennis can result in an "acute form of tennis elbow." "Wiiitis," as it’s called, is caused by excessive Wii playing, rather than overexertion.  Since the Wii remote is incredibly light compared to a real tennis racket, players are less likely to tire out, resulting in too many potential Wii drinking games.

I think it’s safe to say that a follow-up study will suggest that playing too much Wii Boxing can result in an acute form of ear-biting.