The Internet rippled today as the trial version of the Wii Internet Channel emerged from its cocoon of awkward zooming and fuzzy text as a beautiful fully-formed butterfly. The now-downloadable full version features tweaks and upgrades based on user feedback and aimed at improving your televised web-browsing experience.
The zoom function has been expanded, allowing for fully manual zoom in addition to the oddly-structured automatic zoom featured in the trial version, and Nintendo purports the text will be "... crisp and readable at all sizes." There is now a built-in search function which can be set to use either Google or Yahoo! Search. This should save you the monumental trouble of accessing your Google bookmark, but hey, when navigating the web, there is no place for extraneous gestures and/or clicks. Precision is paramount.
Improved scrolling functionality (sexy!) and collapsible toolbars ('bout time!) round out the list of improvements, but there's one more that we're a bit puzzled by- "multiple on-screen cursors." What, so you and a friend can co-browse the internet? Or maybe engage the versus mode, where the first person to Google their name wins? Honestly, the purpose of this addition eludes us. Surfing the internet is not multiplayer.
Above: Now parents and children have a whole new way to piss each other off
Wii owners have two and a half months to download the full Internet Channel for free. Those who dilly-dally, or who purchase a Wii after June 30th, will have to shell out five bucks for the privilege. Suckers.
April 12, 2007
