There was a barrage of media coverage when the iphone was first released due to the expectation of various hacks to unlock the phone and open it up to third party applications. There was an initial wave of hacks then Apple released an update that wiped these third party applications and disabled unlocked phones. However, two weeks to the day after the update, hackers reciprocated with a ‘jailbreak’.

The iphone is just one example of the many devices that users are looking to customize. Another interesting gadget that has been a target to hackers is the Wiimote (remote control for the Wii); and there are some pretty cool applications that have been developed for it. One of the more popular hackers is Johnny Lee who has posted a series of how-to videos on YouTube for his various hacks. Lee has figured out ways to mod the Wiimote to do some amazing things such as ‘tracking your fingers with the Wiimote’, and creating ‘low-cost multi-point interactive whiteboards using the Wiimote’. These different hacks are possible because the Wiimote’s expansion port protocols are “very open”.

What’s surprising (or maybe not so surprising – more disappointing) to me, as I learnt in a Globe and Mail article is despite Lee’s popularity Nintendo has never contacted him about his innovations and refused to comment on the [Globe and Mail] story. Companies have a huge opportunity to leverage the wisdom of crowds – these developer / hacker communities.

I’m sure companies like Nintendo and Apple have amazing talent inside their company, but this is only a fraction of the smart people in the world who can continuously improve and innovate on your products “the world as your oyster” so to speak as opposed to “your company as your oyster” (similar to Don’s frequently referred to GoldCorp story). These hackers look at products a company releases and thinks of different ways to make it better; why not take advantage of them and help support these initiatives? In certain cases companies may view hackers’ activities as detrimental but it’s all a matter of perspective and how a company chooses to approach these situations. There is a huge opportunity here to find interesting and functional uses to products that regular people (or even respective company employees) would never have dreamed of doing.

For a taste of what you can do with your very own Wiimote here’s Johnny Lee’s video for Head tracking for Desktop virtual reality displays using Wiimote: