April 14: Streaming Through the Wii

I'm torn on the topic of technology. Whew, that's a lot of "T"s in one sentence. As, Aaron Altman, would say, Albert Brooks' character in Broadcast News, "that's a lot of alliteration from anxious anchors...". But, seriously, today's technology is advancing so quickly that it's kind of scary. I mean, we're getting close to the day when our computer's will be programmed to babysit the kids! And that's going a little too far in my book. However, today I experienced some new technology that has me leaning back towards the "keep on creating" side...for the time being. About 2 days ago, I got an email from Netflix promoting new functionality to stream movies through our Wii system. Naturally, I was curious. So, I requested the free disc the email indicated would be necessary to utilize this technology. The disc came today. After sliding it into the Wii, I was given a code that I had to enter into our Netflix online account, and voila...it really works! The disc has to remain in the Wii in order to watch movies, but you can pick and choose from various film categories; even from your own self-created queue in your online account. And, there's no additional fee - just the standard rate of your monthly program. Netflix only offers a limited number of movies to watch via this format; unfortunately, the latest releases to hit the video store shelves are not included. Nonetheless, this is a very cool piece of technology. I highly recommend getting the disc if your a Netflix customer who owns a Wii!