Nintendo launched the News Channel for the Wii - simply check your messages to get the free update. The channel only contains one feed source, Associate Press news, but you can browse both by category (national, international, entertainment, business, technology, sports, etc) or by location using the globe interface. So far, the news feed seems to run the gamut of big stories, odd and interesting local items and even competitor news such as the upcoming PlayStation 3 launch in Europe. In fact, there's a story on the Wii's darkest hour to date, the Hold Your Wee for a Wii radio promotion death (no surprise, the family is suing the station). News is zippy to browse and there's a slideshow that takes you around the world if you like. Want to expand your Wii's capabilities even further? Download a free third-party PC add-on called Orb that streams videos, music, pictures and even TV programs (if you have a tuner card) to the Opera Web browser on your Wii, the PS3 Web browser or any other compatible Internet-enabled device including PDAs and cell phones. It may take some tweaking to get it working with your favorite formats, but it's pretty cool and worth the effort. Best of all, it's entirely free and seemingly devoid of spyware. Get it from orb.com...
