parts
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Wii making parts makers rich, rich we tell you
Not everything inside the Wii, or its motion-sensing controls, is owned by Nintendo. There's a lot of stuff in there that belongs to other companies, and those components are making these other companies very rich. In particular, two companies that have parts in the Wiimote and nunchuk, the US-based Analog Devices and Italian-French company STMicroelectronics. Think about it, Nintendo may have 10 million Wiis out there, but there are far more Wiimotes and nunchuks. Analog Devices had to convert one of its plants into a fully-dedicated Wiimote sensor facility. STMicroelectronics is in the process of increasing sensor production near Milan -- hmm, they're the ones responsible for the sensor in the nunchuk. Wonder if they're to blame for the nunchuk shortage of '06? With Nintendo raising it's Wii shipping estimate to 16.5 million by the end of their fiscal year next March, those parts companies better not stop the flow. It's still hard enough getting the console as is.[Via GameDaily]
iLounge dissects 2G iPod nano, posts gory details
Why, iLounge, why? The 2G iPod nano was announced barely two days ago. It still had its entire product cycle ahead of it! So young, so innocent.. and apparently so ripe for the dismantling. The gurus of all things iPod have dissected what looks like a silver 2G iPod nano (though I'm not sure whether it's 2GB or 4GB) for all the world to see.While the majority of us probably won't get much out of looking at this internal iPod guts pr0n, I can think of one basic lesson we can pass on to the iPod owning luddites of our lives: if they ever, during their experience of owning an iPod, see any of these parts from it - that's a bad thing.
PBFixit is now iFixit
One of my favorite Mac sites, PBFixit, has been renamed iFixit. iFixit provides parts and great step-by-step repair and upgrade tutorials for the Mac mini, Powerbook G3 (233-500mhz), iBook G3 (300mhz-900mhz) and iBook G4 (800mhz-1.42GHz), plus the titanium and aluminum PowerBooks. The tutorials are fully illustrated and, best of all, include pages that allow you to keep track of all the screws and parts you remove, in order. iFixit CEO Kyle Wiens had this to say about the name change: "Why are we changing names? A few reasons. The first: iFixit sounds cooler. Secondly, Apple is discontinuing the PowerBook name and we want to stay relevant to all Mac owners. But most important, we want to keep our options open. Our team is working incredibly hard to improve our product line and develop the Fixit Guide series."Check out iFixit if you haven't. They're a very good resource.
