We all love Nintendo Wii for its fresh take on gaming, using motion sensors, and melting the fat off of millions of fast food-weaned gaming kids. Perhaps you should know who to thank for it.

The Wii's motion sensing feature is all thanks to these shirt-button sized sensors, called accelerometers, supplied by ST Microelectronics, whose MEMS (microelectromechanical systems - the technology of motion detection) division is headed by Benedetto Vigna, the Italian physicist who developed the sensor.

The former University of California at Berkeley co-ed has made motion-detector chips for the mass market, such as motion sensors for car airbags, laptops, and washing machines before he got to know Nintendo and "married" the game maker's vision. Facts: your laptop has a motion sensor, to warn you to put it in a safer place to keep it from falling, and so does your washing machine - to warn you of an unbalanced washload.

Vigna says that in the near future, he plans on making his sensors smaller, cheaper, and even tougher, and to fit it into all sorts of places, such as in shoes and in textile products. Such sensors, he thinks, would be very useful in medical monitoring. He also wants to develop a small motion sensor in cameras to help stabilize their position when taking photos. This would yet be the smallest compass: a magnetic sensor in cameras to stabilize images and warn the photographer of their position when a GPS (global positioning system) signal cannot be had.

With all of Vigna's plans, it's easy to imagine a better future with motion detectors, and not just for games