Announcement: WODE

The Wii Optical Drive Emulator (WODE) has been released for the Wii. This handy little gadget, which is kind of like a flash card for the Wii, lets you:

-Plug a USB stick/hard drive into your Wii to play ISOs directly (no need for discs)
-Is upgradeable, lets you rip games to the harddrive with first update
-Is solderless and external so anyone can install it

Here's an early video of the WODE demonstrating some of its features (thanks to Wiihacks.com):

Update: Wii system 4.2 released - HOMEBREW USERS READ

Nintendo has released a new operating system that can be attained through the regular Wii updates.  It has been shown to block most homebrew applications and the homebrew channel itself.  If you do not want to lose access to homebrew, it is strongly recommended that you don't update yet.

Note: Homebreware has put out a recent software update that lets you still access homebrew games with the 4.2 update from Nintendo.

Read the full article here