Aside from being attractive to the non-gamer, the Wii may be attracting the attention of industries in the future as well. The first we've heard of the Wii being used for practical purposes was for physical therapy but now it seems it may be headed towards even more specialized practices and applications.

Dr. David E. Stone, author of Planning and Designing for High-Tech Web-Based Training believes that a fusion between Wii technology and the world of Second Life may be the next step for corporate training. Not only on Second Life, but maybe for other virtual worlds that may be developed in the future for the technology. But for now, why Second Life? Best bet is because it's open sourced.

The appeal of such a synergy is that manufacturing all the necessary equipment in a virtual training room would be cheap, not to mention being able to reset everything with a click. The application of the Wiimote in such an endeavour would bring training into a different level. Imagine practicing surgery on the Wiimote (and not just on the table of Trauma Center) or handling nuclear material. It's not only safer, it's cleaner and you're not in danger of getting horribly mutated in a meltdown.

Research has already been conducted by a separate group, called WiiController4SecondLife, to fuse the Wii and Second Life. Here's a video of their prototype, featuring a Wiimote to control direction and a treadmill to control speed for walking: