Finally, after much waiting...

[Muzer]

You know the USB ports on the back of the Wii that didn't seem to do much except charge USB devices? Well, after almost a year of waiting, those USB ports are now of some use! With the latest update and redownload of the internet channel (which does NOT delete your favourites), you may finally do the much anticipated thing, USE PRETTY MUCH ANY USB KEYBOARD IN ALMOST EVERY AREA OF THE WII MENU! This includes the wii Message Board, Wii Shop Channel, and, wait for it... THE INTERNET CHANNEL!!!








WOOOOOOOT!!!!!!!!

[Plasma]

MOAR AWESOME TODAY!


--terminate message--

[AndrewTaylor]

I give it a week before GAME start stocking wireless USB keyboards in white for £30 each.

(Honestly? I'd quite like a white wireless keyboard for the Wii.)

[Squirminator2k]

I had a wireless USB keyboard for my 360 in the UK, and when I decided to buy one for use on my 360 and PS3 here in the US, I had a lot of difficulty finding one that didn't come with a mouse. The PS3 supports the mouse but the 360 doesn't. No idea why.

Anyway, I'm glad the Wii supports keyboards fully now. They introduced partial support a couple of updates ago but it didn't include the Internet Channel so I didn't see the point. Now they've sorted it - woo!

[Muzer]

As for me, I don't have any USB keyboards lying around the house (I use PS/2 to free up USB ports), so I rooted around and found a device the school gave me a couple of years back to use because my handwriting was crap, but them told me to stop using it because I needed to actually improve it rather than work around it, the Neo by Alphasmart (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/alphasmart#Neo) (scroll to the top of the page for an image), which I remember emulates a keyboard when connected to a PC. I hooked this up, and it works fine, with the minor side effect that it disconnects if you go to the wii menu or open a different channel so you must take out the USB lead and put it back in, but other than that it's fine. Oh, and there are other minor things, like the whole device crashes if you press delete (thankfully backspace works, and this happens when connected to a PC too, so it's not a Wii thing). But on the whole it's fine.

[Plasma]

I give it a week before GAME start stocking wireless USB keyboards in white for £30 each.

(Honestly? I'd quite like a white wireless keyboard for the Wii.)
Yeah. Heck, I even got the white Gamecube controller, the one that you were calling a 'wii tat'. (although I did need a second controller...)

[Muzer]

It also adds more things, like copying plain text into a search field (but annoyingly not a URL field), and more crap I can't be bothered to list because it's too trivial (you can send favourites to people in Wii address book! What is the point?).

Edit: In fact, I'll list them since I'm boring.

B button on Wii Remote acts as shift

Miscellanious Graphic Changes, as well as some zooming modifications

Increase of favourite limit from 48 to 56, and allows you to send them to a friend

Allows quick editing of the URL (for example to correct a misspelled address, or to go to a new page in wikipedia if you're too 1337 to use the search box).

Improved security.

[AndrewTaylor]

(you can send favourites to people in Wii address book! What is the point?).

I can see occasions when I might use that.

I often read a webpage and feel like sending it to a friend. I'd be mildly irritated by having to bookmark it to do so but it's far better than the old system, which didn't exist.

[Muzer]

Good point.


Still, knowing the Wii's message system, it'll probably take a year to arrive...

[thomasp]

I give it a week before GAME start stocking wireless USB keyboards in white for £30 each.

(Honestly? I'd quite like a white wireless keyboard for the Wii.)
http://www.kustompcs.co.uk/acatalog/3018.jpg

:p

Apple have stopped making that, so maybe GAME will pick up all the surplus stock.