Wiipresent is a small program that enables you to use a Nintendo Wiimote for giving presentations using Open Office, xpdf, evince or Acrobat Reader. It was designed as an off-the-shelf tool with no need to customize it.
But wiipresent can also control multimedia applications or firefox. It does this by translating WiiMote events into keypresses for applications.
There were quite a few compelling reasons for using a Wiimote for giving presentations:
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the same features as most of the advanced presentation devices
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is much cheaper (40 EUR) than those advanced presentation devices (>80 EUR)
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has an open and documented interface where some advanced devices do not work in Linux
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uses bluetooth which is common on laptops nowadays, but small USB bluetooth receivers are quite cheap (10 EUR)
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works very reliably even in a big exhibition hall (LinuxTag 2008) with thousands of people and booths with as many bluetooth devices. We even left the exhbition room and we were still able to control our laptop at the CentOS booth (witness references on request :-))
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fancy silicon covers exist in various colors matching your outfit are available from Ebay
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at least one person attributes finding a girlfriend by using the wiimote in a public area (name witheld because of privacy concerns)
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they come with a wrist-cord (and anti-slip coating) for vivid, animated presenters using lots of gestures
Currently wiipresent can do the following things:
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only requires a bluetooth receiver for communication
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rumbles to indicate how much time you have left for your presentation
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leds indicate how much time has passed/is left for your presentation
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has keymaps for tens of presentation applications (evince, xpdf, openoffice, acrobat reader, …)
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also has keymaps for many other applications (multimedia, terminal, browser, …)
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can be used to control your mouse pointer (to start an application, copy files, shutdown, …)
See the TODO file that comes with the application for upcoming features, ideas and known issues.