The package also comes with a USB device that plugs into the Xbox and communicates wirelessly with the controller mouse.

Finally, there’s an analog controller stick, dubbed a FragChuck, that is held in the non-mousing hand. The FragChuck has three triggers, various buttons and a thumbstick to walk or run the player’s character through the game, while the mouse handles the aiming, shooting and other tasks.

The FragChuck also sports an up-down-left-right directional pad that can quickly toggle the player through an array of weapons in shooter games. The directional pad can be programmed to handle other tasks as well by adjusting the settings from in-game options menus.

This rethinking of the controller changes the gaming experience much more than the add-ons I’ve tried, such as small extenders for the thumbsticks that give gamers a new feel and range of motion.

One thing to note is that the configuration is not completely wireless. I discovered that when I tried the Shark 360 out for the first time.

The USB device that I plugged into the front of my Xbox 360 had to be connected to a standard wired Xbox 360 controller as well. The Shark 360 won’t function without that. I had to dig through more than a dozen boxes in my attic to find one because wireless controllers have been the norm for some time now.

The rest of the operation is wireless, however, and you are not tethered to the console.

With that slightly cumbersome configuration out of the way, I was soon up and running, blasting my way through a few levels of “Turok.” I swiveled left to right too fast early on when panning the horizon, looking for enemies. My performance improved once I got accustomed to the sensitivity and speed of the mouse.

The bottom of the three trigger buttons on the FragChuck allowed me to zoom in with my rifle scope, while a click on the left mouse button on the other hand took the shot. During my gaming sessions, the top two triggers had no duties to handle, but I could have assigned something to them had I wanted.

And so it went with “Call of Duty 3″ and a few other shooters. It felt a bit more like PC gaming and a little less like the standard console approach, which for shooter titles isn’t a bad tradeoff.

Overall, I noticed improved performance when strafing opponents. It was easier to center on targets by using my entire mousing hand and all of its muscles, rather than just a few in my thumbs with a standard controller.

The aforementioned thumbstick extenders can snap off if you handle them too aggressively, but this mouse approach to console gaming doesn’t depend on extra plastic bits you snap on to your existing controller.

I use a mouse daily, so extending that use to my console gaming sessions offered a quick feel of familiarity.

Your own level of enjoyment with the Shark 360 really depends on personal choice and muscle memory. If you commit to using it consistently for some select shooter titles, you’ll quickly get accustomed to the button layout and may find your traditional controller gathering a bit of dust on the shelf.

It’s not the best solution for all games, but it’s a welcome bit of kit for some titles, particularly the first-person shooters.

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Ron Harris can be reached at

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Online:

SplitFish AG: http://www.splitfish.com

Now SDMI is roadkill, outpaced by developments in digital technology and done in by the narrow interests of its own members — record labels competing for dominance and music hardware companies impatient to get their products out to consumers.

In all, some 200 recording and technology companies that paid $20,000 in annual dues took part in SDMI’s lengthy planning and specification design meetings. But many also ignored SDMI’s long-term goals.

With music fans clamoring to listen to their illegally copied MP3 files on mobile devices, makers of the Rio, Nomad Jukebox and other digital music players weren’t about to let the market slip by.

“This was the RIAA’s attempt to reverse physics,” says Jonathan Potter, director of the Digital Media Association, which represents some online media and technology companies. “And it was an attempt to use the cloak of technology development to really try to impose rules on the Internet and content owners.”

For three years, SDMI members met in the U.S. and abroad, sharing ideas about how to digitally watermark audio files to make them hackerproof or cloak them in another piece of computer code that only SDMI compliant CD players would recognize.

But the market for MP3s and digital music overtook them.

As Napster foundered in court, Gnutella, Morpheus and a host of other file-sharing applications took its place. Tens of millions of people downloaded the programs, sharing MP3s to listen to at home and on the road.

SDMI wasn’t even close to ready as millions of consumers took advantage of these “killer apps,” says Talal Shamoon, who had a front row seat for SDMI’s downfall.

A vice president of business development at InterTrust Technologies, a digital rights management company and early SDMI member, Shamoon said “SDMI may have been the wrong medicine for anything.”

“I think the market really moved under people’s feet,” he said.

SDMI’s final public embarrassment came in September 2000 when the group issued a “Hack SDMI” challenge to computer programmers around the globe. SDMI encoded and digitally watermarked some audio content and dared programmers to hack it.

Princeton professor Edward Felten and a few colleagues met the SDMI challenge in three weeks and were about to present a paper on how they did it when the Recording Industry Association of America threatened to sue.

The RIAA eventually backed off, with the association’s general counsel later calling the letter a mistake. But the damage was done.

All five major music labels continue to work on copy protection of course. But competing digital rights management schemes are multiplying, and don’t play well with each other.

Music downloads from the labels’ online service pressplay don’t work with software downloaded with RealNetwork’s Musicnet subscription, and none of those downloads play in a Rio Player, Nomad Jukebox or iPod.

Many manufacturers say they plan to upgrade the software in their devices so the music players will recognize the protected content format — as soon as someone invents one that consumers care to buy.

But such advances may make the players incompatible with today’s digital music, leaving listeners with thousands of MP3s and no device to hear them on.

“Purely from a technological perspective and from a consumer electronics standpoint, it’s very important to have a format that everybody can eat,” Shamoon said.

For up-and-coming MP3 player companies like Bantam Interactive, deciding whether to support digital rights management may mean life or death in terms of consumer acceptance.

“I do not want to make any player which allows only to play copy-protected music,” said Santosh Patel, Bantam’s president.

He never joined SDMI, which was already on its last legs when Bantam was coming to market with its two players 1 1/2 years ago.

Patel wants his products to evolve to support future copy-protected music formats, while retaining the ability to play older unprotected MP3s.

“That way you support the technology, you support the security and eventually you phase out the unprotected material,” Patel said.

Another organization appears poised to pick up where SDMI left off.

The newly formed Digital Media Device Association intends to develop specifications for digital entertainment on portable devices. The group has about 40 members who have been meeting monthly since January, but little else is known about the effort and its director, Tom White, refused to offer details.

Some in government appear to be losing patience with the lack of a solution to securing digital content.

Sen. Ernest “Fritz” Hollings, D-South Carolina, has proposed a bill to require any “interactive digital device” sold in the United States to prevent users from making unauthorized copies of copyright material.

If the private sector doesn’t agree on copy-protection methods within two years, the government would determine the standard.

The Digital Media Association’s Potter opposes Hollings bill.

“We don’t think the government has engineers that rival the private sector’s,” Potter said. “Nor do we think it’s possible to confine consumers. You need to win consumers in the marketplace.”