I got home tonight to find my Nintendo Wii flashing an alert at me (it gets updates over a wireless network to my broadband connection).

When I checked the incoming messages, I was informed out that Nintendo have decided to release their Internet Channel for free.

Channels are basically software applications which are installed on the Wii’s hard disc. Some provide access to game data without needing to load the game, while others, like the Internet and Photo Channels offer specific enhancements to the Wii experience.

The Internet Channel is not lightweight – it occupies about 10% of the available storage on the console, probably due to the installation of Adobe’s FlashPlayer. Still, I figured I’d give it a go.

I’d never downloaded anything from the Wii Shop before – next time I’ll be sure to mute the television when I do, since the progress bar involves Mario running and killing a bunch of Goomba’s with a very annoying repeated ‘bling’ everytime he gets one. Thankfully, it didn’t take too long.

Sound is also an issue when using the browser in the channel – there are clicks and twurps as you wave the wand around the page to hover over links and also when scrolling and zooming.

I was surprised to find that the browser was built on top of Opera (I guess, with their relative success on mobile platforms it did make sense for them to be approached for a console browser) – although the only reason you’d know is the badge when you first start and the big ‘O’ on the home button. The rest of the design fits the typical aerogel of the Wii interface.

Web pages load pretty quick, although some elements seemed to take longer to render (for example, the banner up the top). I also didn’t notice any major issues with CSS/HTML breaking. Text is a bit hard to read on my screen, but I have a 15 year old 24″ CRT. However, since the Wii doesn’t have a HD output, standard browsing will likely be problematic on any screen. You can zoom in and the text becomes legible – but this then incurs horizontal scrolling on most sites.

You only have a choice of Google or Yahoo as your in-browser search, but you can use any other search engine as a web page.

Visiting YouTube redirects to the YouTube XL platform, designed for consoles. Image quality is pretty good (the videos I watched were at minimum the same quality as the television itself), but the platform skips frames as a bandwidth saving measure. I have to admit, though, that the movies didn’t pause while the cache was topped up.

For a free browser you can use on your television, I think that this is pretty good. I wouldn’t have downloaded it when it cost 500 points, though (I’m not entirely sure on the dollar to point ratio at the moment, but I think that is about $5-10).

There are a couple of issues – the aforementioned navigation sounds as you use it are a bit annoying. Also, there doesn’t seem to be any parental control for the channel at all – meaning any family member could access any content (not a problem for me – but seeing as I know a number of families with young children and a household Wii, it isn’t ideal for them).

Still – if you have a Wii, and don’t mind it eating 10% of the storage, give it a try. At the least, you can remove and have not lost anything but a little bit of bandwidth for the download.

Australian Firewall

A few months ago I was in a bit of a self-induced media blackout – I wasn’t reading news so much and I don’t have a receiving TV anymore. So, I was a bit surprised when a fellow member from the UK at HTML Forums asked what I asked about the proposed national firewall in Australia. I can’t find the original article he linked me to, but what was apparently being proposed half-a-year ago was a national “naughty” filter to help parents block content being delivered to their children.

Lack of Transparency

Since then, as the government has been developing the proposal and policy, more details have been coming out. The system will be a two-tier system. First, “naughty” content will be blocked by default, but with an opt-out (for all those “responsible” adults). However, it seems that there will be a second, mandatory blacklist. The details of this list are being kept a secret from the public.

Unsurprisingly, this lack of transparency is causing a fair bit of fuss from a lot of people, although that isn’t the only thing creating a stir.

What is surprising is where the main push for this policy is coming from. Australia’s Federal Government relies more on co-alitions than the UK and the US, and it seems that the majority party is being led by a “partner” party that only has one elected Federal official – Steve Fielding from Family First. Obviously he is not the only proponent, but it does seem that a rather vocal minority is leading the government in at least this particular issue.

Censorship – Fail!

As I have been tracking the Australian Firewall issue, I found it quote interesting to read an article about the successful attempts by a German Politician to block access to WikiPedia because he didn’t like what had been written about him. Apparently he wasn’t after censorship, just “the truth”. Of course, if you block a website because you allege that the content of that site is “untruthful”, then you are committing an act of censorship. WikiPedia has had a long experience of personally biased edits and alleged slander of politicians, but previous cases have usually been resolved within the site’s arbitration systems without such drastic measures as blocking the site.

There is also the rather amusing fact that the censorship ironically increased the page hits to the WikiPedia, since the news articles and broadcasts highlighted the issue, and Germans were able to use proxy services to bypass the nationwide block.

One country that has had a longstanding national firewall policy is China. And it has been a longstanding failure – ever since the restricted connection was created in the mid-90s, people within and without the country have been circumventing the system to enable free transfer of information. The Chinese government keep plugging the holes, but new ones are found all the time. Even the reported team of 40,000 or more internet watchdogs cannot keep up.

Almost 15 years since the Chinese firewall was started, it is still leaking information in and out of the country.

Technology – Fail!

The government is apparently trialling a number of different technologies, each with different success rates. More alarmingly, they have different and wide-ranging effects on the performance of the network they are used on – with at least one dropping functioning bandwidth by 75%.

Imagine that for a moment – you’re paying so many dollars a month for a bandwidth that is suddenly reduced to 75%. In order to restore your connection to the previous speed, you will have to py four times the amount!

The worst thing is that even the most resource hungry technology being tasted isn’t successful. A considerable number of “censored” traffic still leaks through, and an even larger amount of “legitimate” traffic gets blocked. The ratios of failures in detection increases as the bandwidth requirement falls. And that’s before people actually work to circumvent the system.

Why, then?

With all the problems facing a national firewall, and all the opposition to it, exactly why does the government want this? Especially when it will cost tens of millions to setup, and a continuing flow of money to support it.

The main argument from the government is that it is to protect the vulnerable children of Australia from a lot of unsavoury content. However, where parental responsibility fits into this, I’m not sure.

Also, the second, secret, blacklist really has no justification – at least, as long as it is kept secret. The government is trying a variety of rationalisations, but the strongest one is “security” – the greatest political football of the current times. Unfortunately, this is not a particularly convincing argument, since anyone wanting to get at the blacklisted content in this case would be quite competent enough to be able to get around any net restrictions.

What can be done?

One particularly high profile protest is coming from Michael Malone of iiNet.

For the general public, however, there are less spectacular ways which can be just as, if not more, effective:

Internet Petition at Taking IT Global.

Also, writing to your local government representatives in both houses of the Federal Government will let them know exactly where public opinion is on this issue (this does work – letter-writing like this was instrumental in gaining an exemption for sports climbing in the UK from restrictive regulation meant for the workplace, along with lobbying from the national governing bodies).

Members of the House of Representatives – Members of the Senate

Finally, there are a number of protests organised in the state capitals.

Learn more